LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF URBAN MULTILINGUALISM IN TARTU, KAUNAS AND MAINZ
By Arūnė Šulcaitė
Department of Lithuanian Philology Vytautas Magnus University Master‘s Thesis Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jūratė Ruzaitė 15 June 2015
Table of Contents
SUMMARY ...... 2 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 4 2. SEMIOTIC BACKGROUND AND TERMINOLOGY ...... 6 2.1 Sign ...... 6 2.2 The Concept of Linguistic Landscape ...... 10 2.3 Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality ...... 15 2.4 Proper Names in the Linguistic Landscape ...... 17 3. SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT ...... 21 3.1 Language Rights and Policies in Germany ...... 21 3.2 Language Rights and Policies in Estonia ...... 23 3.4 Language Rights and Policies in Lithuania ...... 25 3.5 Foreign Languages in the Three States ...... 26 3.6 Current Sociolinguistic Situation in Mainz, Tartu Kaunas ...... 28 4. METHODOLOGY DATA AND METHODS ...... 32 4.1 Survey Areas ...... 32 4.2 Survey Items ...... 36 5. RESULTS...... 38 5.1 The Usage of Languages on Sign in Three Cities ...... 38 5.2 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs in the Survey Areas ...... 42 5.3 The Relation between Ethnic Minorities and Languages on Signs in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas ...... 46 5.4 The Relation between Annual Tourist flows and Language on Signs in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas ...... 47 5.5 The Usage of Language on Private and Governmental Signs ...... 49 5.6 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs for Different Establishments ...... 53 5.7 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs on 7 Shop Sectors ...... 56 5.8 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs for Different Types of Signs ...... 58 5.9 Language Order, Font and Amount of Text in Multilingual Signs ...... 60 5.10 Implementation of Language Policies in Multilingual Signs in the Three Cities ...... 64 5.11 Language Landscape and Vitality ...... 66
6. CONCLUSIONS ...... 69 REFERENCES ...... 73 Appendix A: Coding of the Data ...... I Appendix B: Total Numbers of Languages Found on Signs in the Three Cities ... VI Appendix B: Multilingual and Monolingual Signs in the 11 Types of Establishments (Percentages) ...... VII Appendix C: Languages on the 11 Distinguished Types of Establishment ...... VIII Appendix D: Languages in the 7 Shop Sectors ...... IX Appendix E: Languages on Different Types of Signs ...... X Appendix F: Language in order of Appearance ...... XI LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.5.1 Ethnic groups in Mainz...... 28 Figure 3.5.2 Ethic groups in Tartu...... 29 Figure 3.5.3 Minority groups in Kaunas...... 29 Figure 4.1.1 Location of a selected survey area in Mainz...... 33 Figure 4.1.2 Location of a selected survey area in Tartu...... 34 Figure 4.1.3 Location of the selected survey area in Kaunas...... 34 Figure 5.1.1 Kissing students fountain with signs in 13 languages...... 38 Figure 5.1.2 The use of language in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas (percentages)..... 40 Figure 5.2.1 Russian graffiti found in Tartu...... 43 Figure 5.4.1 Annual tourist flows in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu by countries of origins ...... 47 Figure 5.9.1 The usage of dominant font for English inscriptions...... 62 Figure 5.9.2 The usage of subordinate font for English inscriptions...... 62
LIST OF TABLES Table 5.1.1 Total numbers of languages found on signs in the three cities...... 39 Table 5.2.1 Monolingual and multilingual signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas...... 42 Table 5.2.2 Languages on multilingual signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu...... 44 Table 5.5.1 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs Issued by Government Agencies and by Private Actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu...... 49 Table 5.5.2 Multilingual and Monolingual Signs Issued by Government Agencies and by Private Actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu………………….. 49
Table 5.5.3 Combinations of languages on signs issued by government agencies and by private actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu...... 50 Table 5.6.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs in the 11 types of establishments (percentages)...... 53 Table 5.7.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs in 7 shop sectors (percentages)...... 56 Table 5.8.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs on different type of signs in the three researched areas...... 58 Table 5.9.1 The result concerning the different font sizes in multilingual signs...... 61 Table 5.9.2 Amount of text in multilingual signs...... 63
LIST OF ABBRIAVATIONS
CH Chinese language
EE Estonian language
EV Ethnolinguistic vitality
FI Finnish language
GfdS Society for the German Language, part of the Goethe-Institute’s project
JP Japanese language
LA Latin language
LL Linguistic landscape
LT Lithuanian language
SE Swedish language
ST State language (German in Mainz, Lithuanian in Kaunas, Estonian in Tartu)
1
SUMMARY
The aim of this study is to provide some valuable insight into the usage of different languages in the cities of Kaunas, Tartu and Mainz and to compare the linguistic situations within them. The sociolinguistic situation in the three research areas is investigated according to the LL methodology developed by various LL researchers, such as Spolsky and Cooper (1991), Landry and Bourhis (1997), Ben-Rafael et al. (2006), Backhaus (2007), Edelman (2010), and others. The study aims to answer the following questions: What and how languages are used in these areas? How does the usage of languages differs in these three cities/countries? The study examines the LL of these three cities by investigating the usage of language in their main commercial districts. The study focuses on the areas of these three cities known to be the most significant and popular commercial zones used predominantly for commercial activities. These commercial districts are as follows: Liberty Boulevard and Vilnius street in Kaunas, Town Hall Square, Rüütli and Küüni streets in Tartu and the Schillerplatz and Schiller street in Mainz. The research is based only on the outside environment. In other words, this research is based on investigating what Androutsopoulos (2013: 77) defined as “Bottom-up Signs.” Therefore, only the signs such as street signs, advertising signs, building names, warnings, notices and prohibitions, billboards, shop signs, informative signs, posters, windows, and outside menus were taken into consideration. In order to systematically analyse the collected LL data, this study developed analytical models according to which the data were investigated. The data were analysed according to the languages contained and their combinations, differences between official and nonofficial signs, differences between the establishment containing the signs, differences between different shop sectors and differences between size and font of the inscriptions. The LL research leads to various implications about the social and political situations, the attitudes and beliefs of the speech communities present in the research area and point to the prevailing cultural and linguistic issues. Moreover, it indicates the possible threat to the linguistic communities present in the research areas. Finally, it demonstrates how English has replaced all of the other languages and become the lingua franca of the three regions. 2
SANTRAUKA Šio tyrimo tikslas yra ištirti skirtingų kalbų naudojimą bei palyginti kalbinę situaciją trijuose skirtinguose miestuose: Kaune, Tartu ir Maince. Tyrimui naudojama metodologija, sukurta pagal įvairių Lingvistinio kraštovaizdžio mokslininkų, tokių kaip Spolsky ir Cooper (1991), Landry ir Bourhis (1997), Ben-Rafaelis ir kt (2006), Backhaus (2007), Edelman (2010) ir kt., pavyzdžius. Tyrimu siekiama atsakyti į šiuos pagrindinius klausimus: Kokios kalbos yra vartojamos ir kaip jos yra naudojamos šiose miestuose? Kaip kalbų vartojimas skiriasi tarp šių trijų miestų /šalių? Lingvistinis kraštovaizdis šiuose miestuose buvo tirtas nagrinėjant kalbų naudojimą ženkluose, esančiuose šių miestų didžiausiuose komerciniuose rajonuose. Maince pavyzdžiai buvo renkami Šilerio aikštėje bei Šilerio gatvėje. Kaune tyrimo duomenys rinkti Laisvės alėjoje bei Vilniaus gatvėje. Tartu – Rotušės aikštėje, Rüütli ir Küüni gatvėse. Tyrimo duomenys buvo renkami tik išorinėje aplinkoje. Kitaip tariant, tik lauke kabantys ženklai buvo renkami ir klasifikuojami tyrimui. Pagal Androutsopoulos (2013: 77) pavyzdį, šiam tyrimui buvo fotografuoti tik tokie ženklai, kaip gatvių pavadinimai, kelio ženklai, įstaigų pavadinimai, įspėjamieji ženklai, skelbimai skelbimų lentose, plakatai, lauko meniu, informaciniai ženklai ir kiti lauke esantys ženklai. Siekiant sistemingai išanalizuoti surinktus Lingvistinio kraštovaizdžio duomenis, šiame tyrime sukurtas analitinis modelis, pagal kurį buvo tiriami duomenys. Jie buvo analizuojami pagal ženkle esančias kalbas ir jų derinius, skirtingas kalbos vartosenas oficialiuose ir neoficialių ženkluose, skirtingas kalbos vartosenas skirtingose įstaigose, kalbų vartojimą skirtingo tipo parduotuvėse, šrifto bei jo dydžio skirtumus skirtingoms kalboms. Šis Lingvistinio kraštovaizdžio tyrimas atskleidžia regionų socialines ir politines situacijas, kalbinių bendruomenių požiūrius į kalbos situaciją regione bei parodo vyraujančias kultūrines ir kalbines problemas. Taip pat, pagal šio tyrimo rezultatus išaiškėja, kad mažumos susiduria su galima grėsme būti asimiliuotomis. Be to, šis tyrimas parodo, kad anglų kalba vyrauja visuose trijuose miestuose ir, nepaisant egzistuojančių mažumų ar politinės bei kultūrinės istorijos, tampa regionine lingua franca.
3
1. INTRODUCTION
According to Backhaus (2006: 1), the city is a place where language contacts are inevitable. Therefore, the cityscape is a favourable environment for variation studies. Nonetheless, the majority of these studies have mostly been focusing on the spoken language, while neglecting the written language. This changed with Landry and Bourhis’ article in 1997, which introduced linguistic research of a written language or language on the sign in the interest area. Since its introduction, the language contact and multilingualism research shifted its interest from spoken to written language. This type of research was named Linguistic Landscape research (further LL) by Landry and Bourhis. Since its introduction in 1997, LL research has rapidly developed as one of the best methods used to describe the most current situation of the language use in a particular area. This is because LL research offers answers to multiple questions about language and society, intergroup relations, language vitality, language laws and policies, economic situation in an area, identities, language politics, multilingualism, and other (Backhaus 2006: 6). In other words, the language use in public signs reflects how the current society uses languages and it also reflects the general attitudes towards that usage. The present study intends to analyse the use of languages in the public signs in three different cities: Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu. The aim of this study is to provide some valuable insight into the usage of different languages in these cities and to compare the linguistic situations within them. This was done by collecting and analysing most recent data from previously mentioned cities. The data was analysed based on a recent similar research done in various places around the world. The main questions to be answered are: a) What and how are languages used in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas? b) How does the usage of languages differ in these three cities/countries? The present paper consists of seven chapters. The two shorter chapters (1 and 6) provide the introduction and conclusions to the present research. Chapter 2 gives a brief theoretical overview about LL research. Definitions of terms related to LL research are provided and explained. Moreover, semiotic properties of the language use on sign are analysed. In addition to this, the term of linguistic vitality and its relation to the LL research is explained. Finally, the chapter closes with the discussion of proper names and the issues they create in the LL research. 4
Chapter 3 analyses the sociolinguistic background of the three researched cities. Firstly, language situation, education and policies in the three researched cities are discussed. Secondly, annual tourist flows and their influence on the usage of language in the three cities are compared and contrasted. Finally, the ethnic minorities living in the city are presented and discussed. Chapter 4 presents the methodology used for the present paper. This chapter discusses the survey areas, survey items, linguistic categorization used, and coding of the data implied. Moreover, some methodological issues of language on signs are presented together with the preferred solution. Chapter 5 applies the methodology introduced in the previous chapter in practice. The results of the collected samples are presented. Firstly, the results are discussed according to the language contained. That is, what languages and how often they appear in the particular research area. The questions of what languages are used for different types of signs, establishments, and shop sectors are also addressed. Moreover, chapter 5 discusses, how ethnic minorities and the annual tourist flows determine the variety and usage of languages in these three cities. Secondly, the combinational patterns of language are discussed. Namely, what languages appear most often/rarely in the multilingual signs together and how these languages are used according to the order of appearance, font and size. In addition, a thorough analysis on how language laws and policies are implied in the three cities is carried out. Finally, the chapter ends with the discussion on the ethnolinguistic vitality of languages present in the research areas in question.
5
2. SEMIOTIC BACKGROUND AND TERMINOLOGY
This chapter gives a basic introduction to the main characteristics of the use and study of written language on the sign. For the purposes of this study, the language used on signs will be considered to be a specific type of language which highly differs from other written forms of language. The visible, written language is considered to be what nowadays linguists refer to as LL of the place. The term is further explained and described through the review of recent studies. This study of language encountered in urban areas will focus only on comprehensible language. Therefore, graffiti which has only personal meaning and cannot be understood by the general public will not be discussed.
2.1 Sign
According to Backhaus (2006: 4) the noun “sign” refers to (a) showing something – an event, an action, a fact, etc. that shows that something exist; (b) information or warning – a notice on public display that gives information or warning; (c) movement or sound that you make to tell somebody something; (d) symbol – a mark used to represent something, especially in mathematics. The first two definitions (a) and b), are relevant to the present study as the sign is seen as an object or quality that indicates the existence of something or gives information or warning about something. In order to be able to fully understand the study of the LL the meaning of “sign” as a term for describing language units in linguistics must be explained. Sign is a key term of semiotics – “the study of signs and symbols, especially the relations between written or spoken signs and their referents in the physical world or the world of ideas” (Anderson 1991). According to Backhaus (2006: 4), in semiotics “sign” refers to any meaningful unit interpreted to stand for something other but itself. This meaning refers to the first definition (a) given above where the noun “sign” is defined as something that indicates the existence of something else. These signs exist only in physical form such as sounds, images or actions. Backhaus further argues that “from a semiotic point of view, the world that we live in is a world of sign” (2006: 5). It is because human society tends to understand and interpret everything that is happening around them and to them by 6 interpreting physical signs around them. Speech, face emotions and body movement are considered to be signs of everyday human communication, without which human interactions would not be possible. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (2001: 65-70) claims that in semiotics the basic characteristic of the sign is a bilateral relationship between a signifier as a material form and the signified as its conceptual content. Saussure’s signifier is a physical object, quality or event that is understood as a sign carrying the meaning of something. The signified is the meaning or message which the signifier evokes. For example, Saussure understands words, which are particular strings of sounds, as a signifier (or a sign) that stands for something else. American philosopher Everaert- Desmedt (2011) argues that the process of semiosis is a triadic relationship between a sign or representment, an object and an interpretant. The main difference between his and Saussure’s theories is the role of an entity interpreting (hearer, reader or anybody else who is making sense of a given sign). According to Everaert-Desmedt’s theory, the interpreter of a sign is a mediator between the object and the meaning/message that the object evokes. Therefore, according to Everaert-Desmedt’s theory, in semiotics sign is understood as something which can be interpreted by the particular entity as carrying the meaning or message of something else. The second definition of sign relevant to the present study defines the sign as an inscription on a particular surface designed for the specific purpose and non- specific readers. Backhaus (2006: 5) claims that this type of sign is used to spread messages of general public interest, such as topographic information, direction, warnings and others. Moreover, public signs appear in a commercial context as instances of marketing and advertising where their function is to draw attention to a business or a product. Backhaus (2006: 5) argues that there is no clear distinction between commercial and non-commercial signs. This is because commercial signs can provide information of general interest just like the non-commercial ones. For the convenience, this study will use Backhaus’ example of the term “public sign” for all signs which clearly convey the meaning to the reader. Therefore, all the displayed structures bearing lettering or symbols, used to identify or advertise a place of business, posted notice bearing a designation, direction, or command and other signs giving the information in public display are regarded as instances of public signs.
7
According to Backhaus (2006: 5-6), public signs can also be interpreted as entities standing for something other than themselves. For example, the name of the company attached to the building can be understood as something other than the sign itself. The sign on which the name is inscribed signifies that the premises of the company are situated in the building. Therefore, the sign, in this case represents the company as a whole. That is to say, even though the sign displays only the name of the company, in reality the intended meaning is “this is the building of the company X.” Therefore, “the public sign is in itself a signifier that relates to specific signified, such as a company, a product, a place, a rule, or other concept” (Backhaus (2006: 5). Moreover, as explained by Backhaus (2006: 5), the sign does not necessarily need to be attached to its referent. It can only give directions how to get there as in the case of guidance signs, or simply call attention to it, as advertisement signs do. Backhaus (2006: 6) claims that from a semiotic point of view, a public sign makes sense only in combination with its referent. This is because the sign of one company would not make sense attached to the building of the other company as it would not fulfil its function properly in this kind of situation. Thus, the public sign must be put in the right place and time in order to fulfil its purpose. It could be argued that the definition of sign presented by Backhaus applies to all the designated materials and objects and other types of public messages. Love (2004: 531) argues that, for example, the road sign is a road sign only as long as it functions semantically. The flat metal disc attached to a pole and bearing certain Arabic numbers is a road sign only when located in an appropriate topographical context. That is to say, only when placed on the road side. In addition, Love (2004: 532) also underlines the importance of the interpreter. According to him, unless interpreted by a reader, public sign has no meaning. Therefore, according to Love (2004: 532), in semiotics the terms “sign” is used only for the objects which are located in an appropriate topographic location and can be understood by the readers. This begs a question whether the signs which cannot be understood by the majority of people living in the area could be considered a sign. One particular example of this type of sign is graffiti. The majority of graffiti writings in the urban area are incomprehensible to most people. This is because graffiti writings are mostly private and understood only by an individual person or an inner group of people. For the
8 purposes of this paper, graffiti which is written in signs incomprehensible to the common reader, is not considered to be a sign. Those written in a simple, readable language, however, are considered to be a sign. According to Backhaus (2006: 6), signs can function semantically in three different ways: as an index, as an icon or as a symbol. An index is the most archaic type of sign. It is a sign with its signifier directly connected or pointed to its signified. Natural signs such as smoke to indicate fire or a knock on a door or phone ringing are examples of index signs. Backhaus (2006: 6) further explains that the relationship between signifier and signified is also established through iconicity. The signifier is linked to the signified through resemblance or likeness to the referent. The example of this case would be portraits, diagrams or imitative gestures. The third type of signs is symbols. In symbols the link between signifier and signified is determined only by convention. That is, the relationship between sign and its implied meaning is not based on similarity or factual closeness. The best example of this is language, which functions by using symbolic signs. In other words, the users of a particular language attach particular strings of sounds and writing symbols to mean a specific object (Backhaus (2006: 6). According to Backhaus (2006: 6), these three types of signs (index, icon and symbol) are not mutually exclusive as the relationship between the signifier and the signified can be based on more than one property. Therefore, some signs can have properties of two or all the three categories. A good example of this is onomatopoeia words (words that phonetically imitate, resemble or suggests the source of the sound that they describe). Tufi and Blackwood (2010: 197) note that “the methodologies employed in the collection and categorization of written signs is still controversial.” Therefore, the problem of what should be considered a LL sign and whether all signs should hold the same importance as others is still in question. For instance, it is not clear if hand- made signs should be regarded in the same way as large commercial signs. The present study considers these signs having the same value and reflecting the same social tendencies. Another problem which is often raised by the scholar of the field is whether to research signs which have several languages or to include the monolingual ones too. The majority of research done on the subject is concerned only with multilingual signs. However, Papen (2012) has applied the term to study how
9 monolingual signs are written in German cities. Similarly, Heyd (2014) used the term to research how English signs are written and general attitudes that people living in the research area hold toward these signs. In LL research Leclerc (1989: 14) distinguished two types of signs: private and governmental. According to Leclerc (1989: 14), private signs include commercial signs of storefronts and business institutions (e.g. retail stores and banks), commercial advertising on billboards, and advertisement signs displayed in public signs on private vehicles. Governmental signs refer to public signs used by national, regional or municipal governments in the following domains: road signs, place names, street names, and inscriptions on governmental buildings, including ministries, hospitals, universities, town halls, schools metro stations, and public parks (Leclerc 1989: 15). Both governmental signs and private signs contribute to the LL of a region. Leclerc (1989: 15) notes that when the usage of language(s) on private and governmental signs is relatively similar, it shows that the region has constituent LL. However, when the usage of language differs greatly between private and governmental signs, it might reveal clashing positions and attitudes on language. Most commonly, according to Leclerc (1989) private signs will have greater diversity of languages on them, which reflects the multilingual nature of a particular territory or region. Therefore, the variety of languages on private signs might be seen as a manifestation of cultural and linguistic diversity of the people living in the area.
2.2 The Concept of Linguistic Landscape
Nowadays language in its written form surrounds us everywhere. No matter whether it is an advertisement, road or street signs, or a simply graffiti inscription on a wall, every human inhabited area contains millions of these language inscriptions. This written form of the language is what linguists began to refer as a LL. The present part of the current paper will explain the concept of LL as it is presented by the scholars of the area. The term “Linguistic Landscape” was first used by Landry and Bourhis in 1997 in their paper analysing how Francophone high school students perceive and understand public signs in Canadian provinces. They defined LL as following:
10
The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration.” Or, in brief, linguistic landscape “refers to the visibility and the salience of languages on public and commercial signs.” (Landry & Bourhis 1997: 23).
In short, Landry and Bourhis’ definition explains that the object of study in LL research is the language on signs in public space. Though the majority of researchers rely on Landry and Bourhis’ definitions, the definition might vary depending on the researcher. For example, for Ben-Rafael et al. (2006: 14) linguistic landscape is “any sign or announcement located outside or inside a public institution or a private business in a given geographical location”. This definition differs from Landry & Bourhis because it also includes signs inside buildings. Likewise, Dailey et al. (2005) expand their definition of LL to include such items as advertisements sent to one’s home, the language heard when walking in one’s neighbourhood, the language one hears on television, and the language spoken by teachers in the classroom, in addition to language on inside and outside signs. Shohamy & Waksman (2009) propose a very new and different definition of LL. They suggest a very broad approach to LL in which the objects of study are all possible ‘discourses’ that emerge in public spaces, including texts, images, objects, and placement in time and space as well as human beings. Such variety of existing definitions of LL exists because the field of study is relatively recent. Sebba (2010: 73) claims that "the linguistic landscapes paradigm has evolved rapidly and while it has a number of key names associated with it, it currently has no clear orthodoxy or theoretical core." This is why it is hard to define clear boundaries between what should be considered a study object and what should not. This paper limits its scope to the notion of LL as defined by Landry & Bourhis (1997). Sebba (2010: 73) describes LL being "somewhere at the junction of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography, and media studies". This is because scholars of the area mostly study how languages are visually used in multilingual societies in a study area. Spolsky (2009: 25) claims that the study of LL is developing into sub – fields of sociolinguistic and a language policy. One of the key topics of interest is the choice of language in public signs in bilingual or 11 multilingual urban space. Because the scholars are mainly interested in language usage in the urban area, Spolsky (2009: 25) argues that the term “cityscape” should be preferred to “landscape.” However, in this paper, I will follow Landry & Bourhis’ example and continue using the term coined by them. This is because the LL research is growing vastly, and it would be naïve to assume that the research will continue analysing only urban areas. Ben-Rafael (2009: 40) claims that the study of LL focuses on analysing inscriptions (any written signs found outside private homes, from road signs to private names, to names of streets, shops or schools) according to the language used, their relative silence, syntactical or semantic aspects. Thus, Ben-Rafael (2009: 40) argues that languages, apparent in public space, are to be seen as social facts, the variation of which should show more general social phenomena. In other words, the language on the sign indicates the social phenomenon present in the research area. It answers the main question about the language choice: language for whom and by whom. Kasanga (2012) simply explains that language use on public signs indicates what languages are locally relevant, or gives evidence which languages are becoming locally relevant. For example, merchants might use more than one language to attract foreign clientele or minority members. Thus, the language used on sign might indicate the significant minority community or huge foreign clientele. According to Landry & Bourhis (1997: 25), the basic function of the LL is to provide information. The informational function of LL serves as a distinct marker of the geographical territory inhabited by a given language community (Bourhis 1992). That is, the language used in the outside environment in a territory inhabited by a particular language community will most often be that of the language community living in the area. Thus, LL informs the observer about both the people living in the territory and the language being spoken there. In addition to this, Landry and Bourhis (1997: 25) claim that LL also characterizes two similar language communities living in the bordering areas. This is because the use of the same language or even its variety in a LL of a particular territory allows observing language differences of the bordering territories of two similar language communities. Moreover, Landry and Bourhis (1997: 25) argue that well-established language boundaries help to stabilize the relationship between competing language communities by clearly demarcating
12 administrative territories where those languages are used in both governmental and service sectors. Therefore, LL informs both the members of the dominant language community living in the area (the entire group) and the people from other language communities (the outer group) about the linguistic features, territorial limits and language boundaries within a particular area. Landry and Bourhis (1997: 27) also claim that language on signs can provide information about the sociolinguistic composition of the language group inhabiting the territory in question. Public signs can be multilingual or bilingual reflecting the diversity of the language communities present in the area. Bourhis (1992) explains that the predominance of one language over other(s) might also indicate the language status and power within a territory in question. In this situation, the majority of signs would be in a dominant language, whereas only few signs would have the language of the weaker group present in them. According to Bourhis (1992), sometimes only the language of the dominant group might be present in the public signs, or the weaker language might be present only on state signs together with the language of the majority. Moreover, the power and status of the dominant language can be understood when on the bilingual signs the dominant language is written more visibly than the subordinate language (Bourhis 1992). This is most commonly done simply by using bigger or more noticeable font for the dominant language. Also, the dominance of one language over the other on the public signs might simply be shown by the choice of appearance. That is to say, the language which holds more power and status will appear before the weaker language. Thus, even if the bilingual signs are written in the same font, dominant language might be indicated by the choice of which language to put first. Landry and Bourhis’ informational function of LL research, nowadays, have been supplemented by other scholars. For example, Backhaus (2007: 58) argues that LL research can simply be done to analyse which languages are more prominent in which neighbourhoods. Backhaus (2007: 58) also points out that in some case the present of other language in the area simply shows that the sign makers try to appeal to the readers by a language which is perceived as more prestigious than the mother tongue. Moreover, some signs might be spelled in a way that reminds of or conveys the aura of another language, but is meant to be understood by monolingual speakers
13 of the area. The most common example of this are Chinese or Japanese restaurants in which Latin letters are spelled to resemble Chinese symbols. In rare cases it might reflect the country language policy as in the case of Finland, where signs cannot be Finish only. Backhaus (2006: 6-8) argues that the study of LL might also examine such questions as which languages are used for which type of institution, (e.g. governmental institution, commercial businesses, private establishments, etc.), and which languages are used for more expensive/cheaper items/services. According to Grivelet (2001), LL can also study the choice of different scripts for a particular language. For example, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, some signs written in the traditional Mongolian script were put next to signs in Cyrillic in Mongolia. Similarly, Bender (2008) researched street signs and other public signage written with the Cherokee syllabary in some Cherokee speaking communities. Finally, the study of the LL also shows evidence of the presence and roles of different languages through history. Francis et al. (2005) research done on language use in cemeteries of the immigrant communities can be used as an example of it. According to Francis et al. (2005), research some tombstones were carved in languages which were no longer used by the immigrant community. Thus, showing the emotional and identical value of language in the immigrant community. Spolsky argues that “the study of the public signing provides the best method for studying the important aspects of sociolinguistic ecology of the city” (2009: 25- 26). In other words, the LL research is the best way to study how language is changed and shaped by the people living in the city. Huebner (2006) demonstrated it by his study of Bangkok, which revealed the shift from Chinese to English and showed the growing importance of English in the area. Similarly, Gorter (2006) in his study showed how different language policies affect minority languages and how English remains untouched by the same policies. Spolsky (2009: 26) notes that LL research is the most adequate method to research the language using trends in an area of interest as it provides the easiest way of the most current data gathering. No matter if it is an informal street observation, interviews with random people in the research are or questionnaires used for data gathering one can see the attractiveness of this type of research as it requires less time and provides the most recent information. Therefore,
14 as Spolsky claims (2009: 26), the methodological advantage alone justifies the technique.
2.3 Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality
Landry and Bourhis (1997: 29) claim that LL acts as the most observable and immediate index of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting a given territory. This is because LL might strongly influence how language community members perceive their own language power and status. In the studies of social multilingualism, the relative strength and power of two competing language groups is considered to be an important factor influencing the use and maintenance of a particular language (Edelman 2005: 11). Therefore, the notion of LL can be related to the concept of ethnolinguistic vitality. Giles et al. (1977: 308) define ethnolinguistic vitality (further EV) as the “sociostructural factors that affect a group’s ability to behave and survive as a distinct and active collective entity within multilingual settings.” The sociostructural factors influencing outer-groups language and identity maintenance are demography, institutional support the group receives and status the language community holds (Sachdev and Bourhis 1990). The weaker these sociostructural factors are in comparison to the dominant ethnologists group, the more likely it is that the outer-group will cease to exist and lose its ethnic and linguistic identity. According to Giles (1977: 308), the sociostructural factors of EV influence the processes of bilingual development. The EV of each community influences the bilingual development by limiting or expanding the individual network of linguistic contract with L1 and L2. In other words, the relative EV opens on the established contact and opportunities with each ethnolinguistic group. Landry and Bourhis (1997: 29) argue that without a sufficient degree of EV members of the linguistic group do not have the necessary opportunities to expand their individual network of linguistic contact that fosters the psychological disposition to learn and use the L1 or L2 language. According to Lambert (1975), the outcome of bilingual development might be assessed as additive or subtractive. When the person’s network of linguistic contact in L2 does not cause loss of L1 or cultural identity, the bilingual development might be described as an “additive” process. When, however, an individual’s network 15 of linguistic contact in L2 has detrimental effects, which lead to the lower development of L1 and eventual linguistic and cultural assimilation, bilingualism might be defined as “subtractive.” Giles et al. (1977) propose that the overall objective vitality of each language group can be estimated by assessing the strength and capital of the sociostructural factors constituting EV. Giles et al. (1977) define these factors as four types of “linguistic capitals”: demographic, political, economic, and cultural. According to Landry and Bourhis (1997: 30) the relative demographic capital of the community can be assessed by the number and the proportion, the relative birth rate, the degree of endogamy and exogamy, and rates of emigration and immigration. Political capital can be assessed by the support that the ethnolinguistic group receives at various levels of government and public affairs. The political capital of a language group can also be determined by monitoring the degree of language use in government functions and services including government signs. Moreover, the political capital might be assessed by analysing the language rights and policies of the country (Landry and Bourhis 1997: 30). Economic capital can be measured by the use of group’s language in commerce and industry, including commercial signs contributing to the linguistic landscape (Landry and Bourhis 1997: 30). Finally, cultural capitals can be assessed by monitoring the extent to which the group controls its own linguistic, educational and cultural institutions and the degree to which the media reflect and portray the language and culture of the group (Landry and Bourhis 1997: 30). Kallen (2009) points out the limitation in Landry & Bourhis’ research. According to Kellen, these authors focused only on languages within the territory in question and did not take account of the linguistic diversity of tourists as an essential part of the social environment. Keller (2009) points out that it is impossible to speak of EV of the tourists. Therefore, the LL may not always be revealing of the EV of groups inhabiting a given area. Thus, it must be understood that the term “ethnolinguistic vitality” can be used only when researching languages spoken by the inhabitants of the territory.
16
2.4 Proper Names in the Linguistic Landscape
A huge part of the LL consists of proper names such as the name of the shop, brand and product names, names of the streets or residents. Anderson (2007: 12) defines proper names (or proper nouns) as nouns that in their primary application refer to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft. They are distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation), or non-unique instances of a specific class (a city, another planet, these persons, our corporation). Therefore, while a simple noun names a person, place, thing, or idea, a proper noun is more specific. It gives us the actual name of the person, place, thing, or idea. The actual names of people are proper nouns. So are the names of states, streets, rivers, oceans, countries, companies, institutions, churches, and more. In most of the languages proper nouns are typically spelled with the first capital letter making it easy to distinguish it from simple nouns. In this part of the present paper the methodological problems the proper nouns create are discussed. Many public signs contain proper nouns. The majority of shops have their unique name or represent the name of the brand. These brand names play a major role in advertisement giving a foreign flavour to the shop (Edelman 2009: 143). Therefore, it is unavoidable to talk about proper names when researching LL of the territory. One of the most common questions raised by the researchers of LL is whether to count the usage of proper names in the use of the L1 or as an instance of foreign language in LL? If we count the brand names the numbers of foreign language in LL would increase greatly and influence the overall results. Therefore, it is important to discuss whether the inclusion of proper names as part of the same language or exclusion as foreign elements should be done. To put it more simply: how should the proper names classified by language? It would be ideal if any brand name could be designated to a particular language. For example, the clothes shop “Audimas” (Lith. Weaving) could be easily coded as an instance of Lithuanian on public signs. The brand name in this case uses a Lithuanian noun. However, the problem arises when we have such widespread brand names as “Nike”. The name Nike originates from the Greek goddess of victory. However, the company producing items is American and is associated by the majority of customers to American production. Thus, should this brand name be counted as an instance of Greek or 17
American, or does it become a part of every language in which it is used? (Edelman 2009: 144). Edelman (2009: 144) argues that the usage of proper nouns helps to create what he calls “impersonal multilingualism.” That is to say, these words do not transmit factual information but rather are used to appeal to emotional information. Therefore, the association or secondary meaning of a word or expression is more important than its explicit or primary meaning. Schlick (2003: 6) exemplifies this with the shop names which adopt an English function word as their shop or brand names. He argues that for shop-owners even English functional word become appropriate for brand and shop names as English is an international language and seems to carry the feeling of quality. Therefore, even the usage of functional word appeal to the customers emotions only because they are English. One of the ways to deal with proper names in LL research, according to Edelman (2009: 145), is to classify them by language. Edelman argues that one of the best evidence that proper names can be adapted to different contexts is the usage of names in different languages. For example, in countries like Poland, Lithuanian and Chine people “translate” their name when they introduce themselves to foreigners. The names are often replaced by similarly sounding names in such languages. For instance, Polish Piotr would be translated to Pieter, or even by unrelated names, as long as they sound similar. Similarly, the names of monarchs, non-contemporary authors, popes and place names are commonly translated. In addition, even the brand names can be translated into another language. Edelman (2009: 145) exemplifies this by the international ice cream brand Unilever, which is known as Algid in Italy, Kibon in Brazil, Langnese in Germany, and Streets Australia. Thus, even brand names can be context-specific or part of a specific language and culture. Bade (2006: 193), however, argues that names can be part of any language in which they are used. He illustrates this by the book titled Zhen He. The multilingual book contains essays in three different languages and the name Zheng He is written in all of the translations according to the language rules of the language the book is translated to. This shows that the Chinese name written in Latin alphabet becomes the part of the language in which it is used. Therefore, Bade proves that the proper names can be part of any language depending on the context in which they occur.
18
Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) did not consider proper names a problem for the language classification and chose to code them in the same way as all the other words. Brand names such as Mark and Spencer were coded an an instances of English, Adolfo Dominguez as Spanish, and so on. Therefore, they made the choice to code proper names according to their original language. In his research in Tokyo, Backhaus (2007), did not identify brand names as an instances of foreign languages if they did not provide additional information. Bachaus (2007) chose to ignore all brand names on the assumption that these are used as a part of Japanese and do not provide any additional information. Sjoblom (2003), who investigated company names in Finland, regarded brand names as being “neutral”. That is to say, these signs could be both the instances of foreign language(s) or a part of the Finish language. Korzilius et al (2006: 174) in their paper analysing job advertisement also made a proper name explicit. They did not count the English proper noun use as an instance of English unless the advertisement was specifically English. The choice was made because there were many cases where the proper names could not be translated as the Dutch translation would lose suggestive meaning. However, they did count meaningful English words which could be easily replaced by Dutch as instances of English. For example, Johnson and Johnson was not considered to have an English word, while T for Telecom was considered to have two English words (Korzilius et al. 2006: 174). Thus, Korzilius et. al. chose to classify company names which derive from English names as instances of the same languages. However, company names which derive from meaningful word as instances of English. However, Edelman (2009: 152) criticises this separation as the distinction between names that “do” and “do not” contain meaningful word seems quite subjective. Neither of the above propositions how to classify proper names seems to be a satisfactory solution to the problem of the classification of proper names. This is because the coding of the text is never completely objective and it depends on the knowledge of the researcher (Edelman 2009: 147). Therefore, it is difficult to give a decisive answer to how proper names should be classified by language. Edelaman (2009: 152) argues that the researcher who does not code proper names as foreign language gets an incomplete picture of the LL’s multilingual character. In addition to this, according to Edelman, the possibility of the translation
19 of names, however limited, shows that names can sometimes be a part of specific language. If you exclude proper names from the data you might get more accurate results about the languages spoken in the area; however, this might also get into ways of identifying what language holds a higher status. Thus, it is most objective to assign proper names to the language of their origins.
20
3. SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT
Language Laws are the regulations that present the policies concerning the status and form of languages of the state in question, as well as policies defining the rules and regulations of the teaching and learning of languages. According to Skutnabb-Kangas et al., linguistic or language rights are “the individual and collective right to choose the language or languages for communication in a private or public atmosphere” (1995: 25). The linguistic rights include the right to one’s own language in legal, administrative and judicial acts, language education, and media in a language understood and freely chosen by those concerned (Skutnabb-Kangas et al. 1995: 25). Although the majority of the world’s nations signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which promises to protect all individuals from discrimination on the grounds of language, the actual Language Laws are implemented and executed differently in different countries. In this part of the present paper, the language policies executed in the three countries in concern are presented and discussed.
3.1 Language Rights and Policies in Germany
The language of the Federal Republic of Germany and the language used in schools, media and other forms of communication is German. The German Constitution, adopted in 1949, states that “no one may be prejudiced or favoured because of his sex, his parentage, his race, his language, his homeland and origin, his faith or his religious or political opinions” (German Con. art. 3). Thus, according to the official German laws, the inhabitants of the Federal Republic of Germany are granted the freedom of language, and the usage of any language in any sector depends on the individual choice. Moreover, there is no law stipulating an official language for the Federal Republic of Germany, making German de facto language only (Blumenreich 2013). In other words, there are no general laws regulating the use of the German language. This is because language issues are labelled under the field of culture in Germany, making it the responsibility of the federal state (Blumenreich 2013). Therefore, the implementation of language laws and policies depends on particular regulations in the particular German state and might vary according to the region. 21
Nonetheless, all states are obliged to act according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereinafter referred to as ECRML), which Germany, as did other 32 countries, signed in 1992. This treaty protects and promotes historical regional and minority languages in Europe and all the language use and promotion policies active in the Federal State may not contradict the policies promoted in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Gjørt 2002). ECRML renders a basic framework that the states should protect and promote historical regional and minority languages. The principles of ECRML are mapped in the two parts of the charter. Part II of the charter features eight main principles and objectives, according to which the states must base their language policies and legislation. First of all, the regional and minority languages (but not immigrant languages) must be officially recognised and promoted as an expression of cultural wealth. The geographical area of each regional or minority language must be recognized. The need to promote and perceive the minority and regional language must be recognized. The states must facilitate and encourage the use of such languages in speech, writing, public and private life. Moreover, the state must ensure that teaching and study of such languages at all appropriate stages are accessible to the learners. Finally, the state must guarantee that all forms of unjustified distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference, related to the use of a regional or minority language and intended to discourage or endanger its maintenance or development, is prohibited, and the mutual understanding between all the country’s linguistic groups is promoted (Gjørt 2002). Recent debates question the current language situation in the Federal Republic of Germany. According to Volker (2006), more and more politicians and linguists address the issues of globalisation and influence of the English language on the German language. Kosmos (2015) argues that “English is continuing to assert itself as the Lingua Franca in many areas of public life, particularly in business, but also in research and teaching, pushing German ever nearer the periphery.” Kosmos (2015) states that even the German specialist terminology is suffering from continuous implementation of English words. It is not surprising that many German academics believe that the use of English in the academic world, media, businesses, and even private sector has gone too far. Resent symposium, organized by the GfdS (i.e.
22
Society for the German Language) as part of the Goethe-Institute’s project “The Power of Language” have raised the need of language laws in Germany. The panellist, including journalists, the head of the Duden Editorial Department, a Member of the German Bundestag, and representatives of the GfdS, and the Verein Deutsche Sprache (i.e. German Language Association) questioned the current German language situation and continuous threat of English. The majority of the finalists spoke for the implementation of language policy in the German constitution in order to retain its cultural value. Even though the ideas promoted in the symposium still remain only a discussion of intellectuals, it shows that the public opinion and ideas about the language laws are changing, and in the future the ECRML might be replaced by the constitutional Language Laws in Germany.
3.2 Language Rights and Policies in Estonia
The current Estonian language policies reflect the Soviet era or rather the resentment towards it. It is no wonder that, in comparison with other European countries, the language laws are particularly strict in Estonia. One must understand that the majority of these laws came into action in the early years of the independence processes. Kempanian (2015: 54) argues that this is because Estonians have a continuous feeling of fear towards Russia and even other countries. Most of the Estonians still fear the Russian political influence and believe that they might be occupied by Russia again. The Estonian Language Laws emerged as one of the ways to create loyal bilingual minority and integrate the minority speakers into society (Druviete 1997). Similarly, Ozolins argues that for many Estonians these harsh language laws are “the way of securing national survival for a population once threatened with becoming a minority in its own land” (1994). Therefore, to objectively understand and judge the current linguistic situation of Estonia, one must take into consideration the historical background of the country. The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Estonia stipulates that the official language of Estonia is Estonian. The state guarantees everyone’s right to receive instructions in Estonian (Estonian Con. art. 37, § 4), to address state agencies, local governments and their officials in Estonian, and to receive responses in Estonian as well (Estonian Con. art. 51, § 1). Moreover, according to the Estonian Constitution, 23 the official language of state agencies and local governments is Estonian (52, § 1). Thus, the Estonian language takes the major position. It is a state language and the language in which all legal conducts must be carried out. The Language Act of the Republic of Estonia, adopted in 1995, defines the domains in which the use of Estonian is obligatory. Namely, Estonian must be used in official local governments (Estonian Con. Art. 52 §1). However, according to the second part of the same article, in the localities where the language of the majority is other than Estonian, local governments are allowed to use the language of the majority for internal communication, this rule is exercised to the extent and in accordance with procedures established by law. According to Yaroshevsky (2011), this rule is rarely followed as it is always hard to prove the eligibility of the claim to use a minority language in a governmental institution, and the state always prefers the official with Estonian origins. One of the particularities of the Estonian law is that all state officials are required to know Estonian language. Thus, it has become difficult for the minority language speakers to rise to the governmental positions (Yaroshevsky 2011). Moreover, just like the other post-Soviet Baltic States, Estonia has its own language inspectorate – a body which oversees how the language law is being conducted. Yaroshevsky (2011) argues that the Language Inspectorate or the so-called “language police” is examining the use of Estonian in everyday work of governmental institutions. According to the Estonian laws, the language inspection has a legal right to conduct spontaneous checks on anyone working in any sphere, and should a person fail the Estonian exam, the body then may initiate the sacking of this employee. As mentioned before, the strict Estonian language rules are the outcome of a harsh Soviet experience. Even though during the Soviet era the Estonian language was not prohibited, the usage of it was constrained mainly to private domains. According to Johnson (2010), the most prestigious educational programs were taught only in Russian. Even though Estonian was permitted to be used in public life, the speakers of Russian would force the Estonians to speak in “human language" (Johnson 2010) when addressed in Estonian. This is the reason, why nowadays one of the major components of the Estonian national identity is the Estonian language. Johnson (2010) even claims that people who speak Estonian without an accent are
24 treated as real locals, regardless of their surname or formal ethnicity. On the other hand, those who speak it poorly or do not speak Estonian at all do worse and are under-represented in public life and top jobs (speaking basic Estonian is also a precondition for Soviet-era migrants wanting to gain citizenship). Therefore, minority language speakers prefer sending their children to Estonian schools to make sure they will be able to obtain better employment opportunities and will be stagnated less because of their linguistic background.
3.4 Language Rights and Policies in Lithuania
As is the case with Estonian, the language laws, which emerged after the proclamation of independence of the Republic of Lithuania, were written to promote the national identity and building of a national state. According to Järve (2003: 92), the public activities of other languages, especially the ones which dominate in the region (mostly Russian or Polish in case of Lithuania) due to a historic background, are not only perceived as a threat of cultural “delithuanization”, but also as a possible threat to the political independence of the country. Therefore, the language laws introduced in 1980’s were justified by the need to strengthen the identity of titular nation and to ensure its cultural dominance of Lithuanians, as well as to protect the purity of the Lithuanian language itself (Järve 2003: 92). According to the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian is the state language, which is to be controlled and used in public life (Lithuanian Con. art. 1- 2). Therefore, according to the Law on the State Language, Lithuanian is the language of the public sphere, which determines that it must be used in the area of legislation and in correspondence between the institutions of state administration and local self-government, authorities, companies and organizations (Law on the State Language, IX-954: art. 3-5). The Law on the State Language also states that the institutions of state administration and local self-government have to provide services in the state language (Law on the State Language, IX-954: art. 7). However, as it is in Estonia, the Law on Ethnic Minorities allows using the language of the ethnic minority in authorities in those regions where the particular ethnic minority represents a significant part of the population (Law on Ethnic Minorities, I-1007: art. 4). Unfortunately, the law does not precisely state, what number of inhabitants is 25 perceived as a “significant part of population”, leading to a continuous dispute between minority representatives and politics about whether it is appropriate or not to conduct legal actions in other languages. Even though, language laws do not regulate the unofficial communication of the population and the language of events of religious communities as well as people belonging to ethnic communities, it does forbid the use of any other language in public signs. Precisely the 17th Article states that: In the Republic of Lithuania public signs shall be in the state language. Seals, stamps, letterheads, plaques, signs in offices and other places of enterprises, establishments and organizations of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as names of goods and services provided in Lithuania and their descriptions, must be in the state language. (Law on the State Language, IX-954: art. 17)
Thus, the use of any other language in public signs except for Lithuanian is against the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and is considered a crime. Article 18, however, states that names of organizations of ethnic communities and their informational signs may be rendered in other languages along with the state language, but the font of words in other languages cannot be larger than that of font of words in the state language (Law on the State Language, IX-954: art. 18). Therefore, only the ethnic minority organizations and groups have the right to use foreign language in public signs, but it is to be used together with the state language and the state language has to be dominant in format. However, the Language Law does not apply to educational institutions, where the foreign language can be used as means of education or communication and even for administrative purposes. Even though the law requires the pupils to be taught in their mother tongue in the primary and secondary educational institutions, the teaching of the first foreign language starts relatively early.
3.5 Foreign Languages in the Three States
According to the census of 2006, 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% claim to be fluent in two languages other than their own (European Commission 2006). Most popular language to learn as their first foreign language in school is English. In rare cases, Latin or
26
French might be taught first in certain gymnasiums, however, this is very uncommon. The choice of third and fourth languages to be taught in Germany depends mainly on the geographical region and the state people live in. For example, in Brandenburg, which borders Poland, English or Polish are the main foreign languages taught. Similarly, in Saarland, which borders with France, pupils first begin learning French, as their first foreign language. In other regions the more common choices for the third language are Latin, English, French, Spanish, and ancient Greek. According to a German journalist Graf Lambsdorff (2014), the recognition of English as one of the official languages of Germany is commonly discussed in German. Even though linguists and language purists fear the rising influence of English and mixing of the two languages, the general public opinion seems to favour the idea of English as a second official language (Graf Lambsdorff 2014). According to a 2013 survey by YouGov, more than 59% of all Germans support the idea of establishing English as an official language in the whole European Union. According to the data from 2000 Estonian census, Russian is the most popular foreign language, spoken by 66% of all Estonians. It is by the most spoken minority and foreign language in the country (Estonian census 2000), especially in such regions as Narva, where Estonian speakers are the minority of the population. However, according to the census of 2000, the most popular foreign language to be chosen by pupils at schools is not Russian but English. According to the census of 2000, English is spoken by the 46% of all the population. 22% of the population claim that they can fluently communicate in German and it is the third most popular language in Estonia. The immigration and search for job opportunities abroad stimulated study of Northern languages: in recent years Finish, Swedish and Norwegian became more popular. However, these languages by far cannot compete with Russian and English languages in Estonia. According to the Lithuanian Census of 2011, Russian, which is spoken by around 70% of the population, is still the most popular foreign language in Lithuania. Žemaitis (2015) claims that knowledge of Russian can be regarded as one of the outcomes of the period of Soviet occupation as it was mandatory to learn this language during 1940-1990. Therefore, it is not surprising that the older generation (i.e. those born ~1980 and earlier) are fluent in Russian. However, nowadays English
27 is pushing Russian from the first place. Even though only 30% of the Lithuanian population report to be fluent in English (Lithuanian Census 2011), English is the first language choice for the pupils at school with more than 92% of pupils choosing to learn English in 2010 (European Statistic 2010) as their second language. It is not surprising that nowadays, according to the 2011 census results, some of 80% youth reach English proficiency. In addition, the census of 2011 shows that the Russian and German languages are the second most popular foreign languages for chosen by Lithuanians to learn in schools. Polish is the third language, according to the numbers of Lithuanians who report to have a proficient knowledge of it. Nevertheless, it is relatively rare for non-Poles to learn Polish as a foreign language. However, non- Polish people from areas with strong Polish presence may have some knowledge of Polish acquired in day-to-day life. Fifth and sixth foreign languages by the number of speakers in Lithuania are French and Spanish, but they are spoken only by some 2% and 1% of the population respectively.
3.6 Current Sociolinguistic Situation in Mainz, Tartu Kaunas
The three cities analysed in this paper have a very distinct historical background, which influenced their cultural and ethnic composition. To understand the features and reasons for the choice of the language in these regions, the residents of these cities and the language they use have to be identified. Moreover, the most frequent visitors from other countries can influence the LL as well. Thus, in order to understand the relationship between a Linguistic Landscape in an area, its social make-up and public image, a sociological background must be presented. In this part of the present paper, the annual numbers of tourists visiting the cities and the ethnic composition of these cities are presented. According to the census conducted by the Mainz Tourism Centers in 2012, the biggest minority group in the city were the Turkish with 6085 officially registered Turkish inhabitants (around 3% of the city population). The second biggest minority group within the city are Italians (1.8%), closely followed by Serbians (1.8%). Ambiguously, according to the information provided by the tourist centers, about 1.2% of the inhabitants identify themselves as coming from the former Soviet Union. 28
Unfortunately, it is unclear, whether the census form contained this choice, or the inhabitants see their nationality as belonging to the former Soviet Union. Other significant minority groups in the city are the Polish (0.67%), Portuguese (0.65%), Bulgarian (0.54%), Moroccans (0.45%), French (0.34%), and Spanish (0.31%).
German (88%) Turkish (3%) Italian (1.8%) Serbian (1.8%) Soviet Union (1.2%) Polish (0.67%) Portuguese (0.65%) Bulgarian (0.54%) Moroccans (0.45%) French (0.34%) Spanish (0.31%) Other (1.2%)
88%
Figure 3.5.1 Ethnic groups in Mainz
According to the census, conducted by the Johanes Gutenberg University of Mainz in 2000, Mainz is most visited by the British and Irelanders (16.7%), Danes (14.7%), Norwegians (14.2%), and the Austrians (13.7%). The census, conducted by the geography department of JGUM, counted the numbers of tourists staying overnight in the hostels of the region. Therefore, these numbers might not reflect the actual situation as a number of tourists might be staying in other facilities. According to Statistics Estonia, the population of Tartu in 2015 was 97,005. In addition to this, the population of Tartu comprised from the following self-reported ethnic groups: (in January 2013) Estonian (82.06%), Russian (14.7%), Ukrainian (0.9%), Finnish (0.7%), Belarusian (0.3%), German (0.12%), and other. According to Statistics Estonia (2011), Tartu was most visited by the Latvian tourists (11%). Other tourist groups, according to their permanent, resistant place, where German (7%), French (5%), American (5%), Lithuanian (5%), Swedish (4%), Finish (4%), and Spanish (3%).
29
Estonians (82.06%) Russians (14.7%) Ukrainians(0.9%) Belarusian (0.3%) Germans (0.12%) Others (1.9%)
15%
82%
Figure 3.5.2 Ethic groups in Tartu
According to the census of 2015, there were 301,296 people living in Kaunas. According to the Lithuanian Census 2011, the majority of the Kaunas population identify themselves as Lithuanians (93.63%). The biggest ethnic minority in Kaunas is the Russians, with 3.77% inhabitants, who identify themselves as having the Russian nationality. Other minority groups living in the city are the Ukrainians (0.39%), Poles (0.36%), Belarusians (0.12%), Jewish (0.09%), Germans (0.08%), and others.
Lithuanians (93.63%) Russians (3.77%) Ukrainians (0.39%) Polish (0.36%) Belarusians (0.12%) Jews (0.09%) Germans (0.08%) Others (1.5%)
93.63%
Figure 3.5.3 Minority groups in Kaunas
According to the Lithuanian Tourism Statistics 2007, Kaunas was most visited by Spanish tourists (15%). Surprisingly, the second biggest tourist group, according to the country of origins, are the Czechs (14%). Polish and Russian tourists are only slightly behind with 13% and 12% respectively (of all foreign tourists visiting Kaunas 30 annually). Other people who commonly travel to Kaunas are of the following nationalities: Norwegians (8%), the French (8%), Belarusians (7%), and Germans (7%).
31
4. METHODOLOGY DATA AND METHODS
In order to answer the research questions, detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas, based on the approach developed by Backhaus (2006) and Edelman (2010). The investigation was preceded by a pilot study, conducted in Kaunas. During the pilot study, the LL research items were limited only to the signs on the front of gastronomy facilities. However, the general approach for data collection and analysis was the same proving the working methodology. The pilot study is described in a paper by Šulcaitė (2013) “Language Use in Gastronomy. The results of the pilot study showed that English plays a major role in the cityscape of Kaunas, and that it is gradually replacing Russian as the lingua franca of the region. However, the pilot study only proved the dominant role of the English language in gastronomy businesses. Therefore, the need to investigate all of the items in the LL has been raised. Since the data of the pilot study was limited and outdated by the time this research has been conducted, the survey items were collected anew and none of the data from the pilot study is included in the paper. The data gathering and the methodology for analysing the data in this large study is explained in the following subsection. In addition to this, the survey areas, survey items and coding are explained respectively.
4.1 Survey Areas
The study focused on the areas in three cities known to be the most significant and popular commercial zones and used predominantly for commercial activities. These commercial districts are the Liberty Boulevard and Vilnius Street in Kaunas, Town Hall Square, Rüütli and Küüni streets in Tartu and the Schillerplatz (Shiller square) and Schiller Street in Mainz. The research has been based only on the outside environment. Therefore, only the signs, posters, windows and outside menus, and other signs visible from the outside were examined. In other words, this research is based on investigating what Androutsopoulos (2013: 77) defined as “Bottom-up Signs.” The sampling method applied is, as Cook & Campbell (1979: 75-77) refer to it, the diversity or heterogeneity sampling. It is a deliberate sampling of dissimilar 32 data. In other words, it is a method of sampling items from which certain results are expected as they have different purposes in the area. In the case of LL research, Edelman (2010: 68) defines the heterogeneity sampling to be a sampling of all the outside signs, regardless of their type, purpose and message to the reader. Edelman (2010: 68) argues that this way of sampling is more feasible than random sampling as it reveals not only the linguistic background of the population, but also political and cultural tendencies of the region. Therefore, this way of sampling allows analysing a broad spectrum of LL features and can be used to represent LL proportionally. The same sampling method was used in the research of Backhaus (2006) and Ben-Rafael et al. (2004; 2006), who used this method to gather examples of varying data. The territory of interest in Mainz stretches from the Central City Station through the Schiller Street until the Schiller square, and ends at the end of Gaudshtasse (Gaud street). The territory is approximately one kilometre long and is the most commercially orientated part of the city. The map of the surveyed territory can be found in figure 4.1.1 below. As the Shiller street leads directly to the city centre, the park area of Shilerplatz, which is located next to the biggest marketplace and the Dom of the city, it is not only the favourite place for locals, but also the main tourist attraction for it. As it could have been expected, the area has a number of hostels, restaurants as well as many shops, supermarkets and other businesses with a huge variety of different signs or writings in an outside environment. There was no specific aim to collect a certain number of signs. Rather than concentrating on the numbers, the attempt was made to collect as much data as possible for different types of signs.
33
Figure 4.1.1 Location of a selected survey area in Mainz
The territory surveyed in Tartu comprises from the Raatuse Street through the Ülejõja Park and the Kaarsild pedestrian bridge to the City Town Hall. From the town, the most commercially occupied streets of Rüütli and Küüni were sampled. The area covered is approximately 1 kilometre long. As is the case of Mainz, it is the city centre, heavily surrounded by local businesses, hostels, shops, and other establishments which tend to use a lot of bottom-up signs. The short segment from Raatuse Street till the City Hall was chosen in accordance to the dormitories of the University of Tartu established in the area. The presumption was made that this region was inhabited by both international and local students. Thus, the samples collected from this small section might provide some useful insight not only about the influence of foreigners, but also about the view and attitude of the younger generation with higher education. The map of the surveyed territory in Tartu can be found in figure 4.1.2.
34
Figure 4.1.2 Location of a selected survey area in Tartu
The area surveyed in Kaunas starts at the beginning of the Liberty Boulevard, stretches through it until the beginning of Vilnius Street, stretches through this street and ends at the Town Hall of Kaunas. The map of the surveyed territory in Kaunas can be seen in the figure 4.1.3 below.
Figure 4.1.3 Location of the selected survey area in Kaunas
Liberty Boulevard is joined with Vilnius Street, the main commercial district of the city. Liberty Boulevard is a prominent pedestrian street, which is located between the St. Michael the Archangel church until Kaunas Old Town (part of Vilnius Street),
35 which are some of the biggest tourist attractions of the City. The area is approximately 2 kilometres long, which is half as long as areas surveyed in Mainz and Tartu. However, the assumption was made that cutting the commercial region in half would not expose all LL situations of the area, and the area must be sampled in full.
4.2 Survey Items
In order to gather systematic data for the research, all signs in the chosen areas were photographed. The study was carried out from May 2014 to May 2015. To obtain as much data as possible, the gathering of data was carried out on working days, in order to ensure that the majority of the businesses are open and all of the outside signs are visible. A single sign is used as a unit of analysis. That is to say, all signs are analysed separately, regardless of the signs which appear next or close by. For the purpose of this research, Backhaus’ (2006: 55) example of identifying an individual sign was used. An individual sign is considered to be “any piece of written text within a spatially definable frame [...], including anything from handwritten stickers to huge commercial billboards” (2006: 55). Only the signs visible from the outside were photographed. This included posters, billboards, advertisements, and other inscriptions displayed on the shop windows. Text inside the shops that could not be seen clearly from outside was not taken into consideration. Goods, with the written text on them, displayed on the shop windows were considered a sign only, when the written text was very prominent and legible. However, small, hardly visible texts on merchandise, such as a book or journal covers, were excluded from the survey. If the billboard, the flag or other signs had inscriptions on both sides, each side was considered to be a separate sign. However, different stickers displayed on the same surface were considered to be a single sign because they create an impression of the unit. If a sign within a sign was encountered, they were considered to be two different signs unless they complemented each other. That is to say, the message of the sign would be unclear without the other sign. Signs that occurred more than once and were similar in size and shape were counted only once.
36
As mentioned in the first chapter, incomprehensible Graffiti inscriptions were not photographed and not considered to be a sign. However, words written in a legible language that convey a message were taken into consideration. Therefore, writings on walls with markers, or spray which could be read and understood by a particular language speaker or bilingual individual were regarded as public signs and collected as an additional data. Moreover, signs written on pieces of papers and attached to the surfaces visible to the general public were also considered a sign, even if the message in the paper was only a joke or a philosophical quotation. The age of the sign was not taken into consideration. Some of the signs, especially inscriptions on statues and monuments, are older than 30 years; others are brand new inscriptions on newly opened businesses. However, stickers, posters and other signs which were damaged by age and, therefore, almost impossible to read were excluded. The collected data consists of grand sign displays on tops of supermarkets, as well as little stickers attached out of place. All instances are regarded as having equal standing and showing equally important information. The pictures of signs which, after a close investigation, revealed to have more than one sign were copied and cut to highlight more signs. Thus, some pictures are the same pictures which have been edited in order to make it clear which sign is being analysed. In order to investigate and compare the LL in these three countries, linguistic and semiotic characteristics of these signs have to be investigated. The coding method, according to which all variables were marked, is adapted from Edelman’s (2010: 78) study. The coding of each of these variables is explained in Appendix A. Edelman (2010) based many of his variables on the previous research examples done by Ben-Rafael et al. (2004; 2006) and Cenoz & Gorter (2006). The signs were coded according to the following variables: a) sign number; b) the survey area c) type of the sign; d) type of establishment; e) sector of the shop; f) type of sign; g) presence of proper name(s) or both; h) language(s) in which the sign is written; i) number of languages; j) language in order of appearance; k) font size of text; l) amount of text in the language.
37
5. RESULTS
Ben-Rafael (2009: 40) argues that LL research is the best method to be used in order to investigate the social and cultural factors influencing language usage in public displays. For the present investigation, the LL was investigated in eight shopping areas in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas for the purpose of finding to what extent multilingualism (or monolingualism) is expressed on a sign in a public space. This part of the present thesis introduces the results obtained in the chosen areas in these three cities. Firstly, multilingual and monolingual signs present on the sign in the research areas are discussed and compared. Secondly, the ways in which annual tourist flows and linguistic minorities shape the LL of the three cities are analysed. In addition, the following subsections discuss the language choice in private and governmental signs, the usage of monolingual and multilingual sign in different types of establishments, in different shop sectors and on different types of signs. Furthermore, subsections 7.9 examine the order of languages, font size and the amount of text in different languages. Finally, the closing subsections discuss the implementation of language usage policies and vitality of the languages present in the research areas.
5.1 The Usage of Languages on Sign in Three Cities
In this study three areas in highly monolingual cities Kaunas in Lithuania, Mainz in Germany and Tartu in Estonia are considered. The areas researched are urban, metropolitan commercial zones with high numbers of private businesses and governmental facilities. Moreover, it was presumed that, since both Kaunas and Tartu are the second biggest cities of their respectful countries and because Mainz is the capital of the Rhineland-Palatinate state, these three cities are the attractions to a large number of foreign tourists, many of whom should be able to speak English or other language, relevant to the region. Therefore, the LL research should reflect not only the languages of minorities and the majority, but also the usage of foreign languages relevant to the region. This subsection discusses the monolingual and multilingual signs, found in the research areas. Moreover, the results found in these three areas are compared and contrasted. 38
As was mentioned previously, in total 331 examples of public signs were found in Mainz, 316 in Tartu and 804 in Kaunas. As could have been expected, in all three cities the majority of the public signs were written in state language or had state language in them next to the foreign language(s). In total, Tartu had the largest variety of languages out of the three cities. All in all, 15 different languages were found on public signs in Tartu. However, these results are highly influenced by a particular case of 16 public signs on one sculpture. The famous “Kissing Students” fountain is surrounded by tiles bearing the names of Tartu's sister cities: Bærum, Deventer, Ferrara, Fredriksberg, Hafnarfjörður, Hämeenlinna, Kaunas, Lüneburg, Pihkva, Riga, Salisbury, Tampere, Tuku, Uppsala, Veszprem and Zutphen.
Figure 5.1.1 Kissing students fountain with signs in 13 languages
Not only do these tiles mark the distance from Tartu to the cities mentioned previously, but they are also written in their original languages. Therefore, these signs were counted occurrences of 13 different languages, thus influencing the total result of the languages found in Tartu greatly. If these tiles were excluded from the data, the total number on languages found in Tartu would be only 6. The total number of languages found in Kaunas and Mainz did not differ significantly. While in Mainz the usage of 7 different languages on public signs was identified, the total of 9 languages on public signs was found in Kaunas. Table 7.1.1 below summarizes the use of languages on the signs in all three towns. Only the first part of the table, with languages that occurred most commonly, is given. To see the full table, see Appendix B.
39
Table 5.1.1 Total numbers of languages found on signs in the three cities Languages Mainz Tartu Kaunas English 16 % 25% 22.1% German 82.2 % 0.5% 0.21% Lithuanian 0% 0.25% 76.13% Estonian 0% 68.14% 0% Russian 0% 2.2% 0.32% Finnish 0% 1.72% 0% French 0.53% 0.25% 0.84% Total Number of languages found 7 15 9
As it is seen in table 5.1.1, the second language most frequently found on public signs in all three cities (after the titular language) is English. It is difficult to say from the gathered results, which language is the third most popular language used in Mainz as the numbers of other languages found in Mainz are very low. As it can be seen from Appendix B, two cases of French and Chinese were found. In addition, one case of Italian, Spanish and Turkish on a public sign was identified. Since Mainz is located not that far away from the French border, and, therefore, might be influenced by the French language, French could be considered to be the third most popular language in the region. Moreover, it could be reasonably argued that usage of the Chinese language does not reflect the linguistic capacity of the inhabitants of the area. It can be assumed that Chinese characters used on public signs are used as a decorative element in order to create exotic atmosphere and to attract customers. The third most frequent language in Tartu is Russian. However, the total number of signs in the Russian language is very low. Only 9 signs in total had the Russian language on them. Finnish follows Russian with the difference of only two signs. In total, 7 signs in Finnish were found. This reflects that the Finnish, as a language of a neighbouring country, is influencing the LL of the country greatly and, even though Tartu is located relatively far away from the Finnish border, Finnish is still the third most common language to be found on public signs in Tartu. Another language found more than once was German (2 signs with German inscriptions on them). Languages such as Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, Swedish, and other appeared only once and only on the Kissing Students, which was discussed previously.
40
Surprisingly, the third most frequent language in Kaunas after Lithuanian and English is French. In total, 8 signs that have the French language on them were found. Russian, which was expected to be in the third place, appeared only 3 times on public signs. Even though it is difficult to draw conclusions, why French appeared in the third place, it could be argued that likewise English, French inflict the message of quality, taste and “Westerness.” Thus, the businesses use the French language to attract clients, whereas Russian is associated with cheap goods and Soviet heritage. Therefore, business owners might be reluctant to include the Russian language, even though it is still one of the lingua francas of the Baltic region and tourists from other countries are likely to communicate in it. Other cases of languages, such as Latin on pharmacies and Chinese on Chinese restaurants, were found. However, it could be argued that these single cases do not reflect the LL of the region and are used for commercial purposes only. In Mainz 94% of the signs were written in German or had the German language on them. 18.7% were written in English or had English inscriptions. French and Chinese appeared in 0.6% of all the signs, while Spanish, Turkish and Italian appeared in only 0.3% of all the signs. To summarise, Figure 5.1.2 below presents the languages apparent in the three cities investigated.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% English German Lithuanian Estonian Russian Finnish French
Mainz Tartu Kaunas
Figure 5.1.2 The use of language in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas (percentages)
In Tartu 87.7% of all the signs were written in Estonian or had the Estonian language in them. 32.2 % of all the signs were written in English or had English
41 inscriptions in them. Russian was found in 2.8% of all the signs closely followed by Finnish with 2.2 % of all the signs having Finnish inscriptions in them. With two examples of public signs with German inscriptions, the signs containing German amounted to 0.6 % of all the signs. Other languages, such as French, Latvian, and Lithuanian, appeared only once and made a total of 0.3% each. In Kaunas a total of 90% of all the public signs were written in Lithuanian or had Lithuanian inscriptions in them. 26.1% of all the signs were either written in English or had English inscriptions on them. With 8 examples of public signs with French inscriptions in them, signs with French in them amounted to 1% of all the public signs. However, even though French constitutes 1% of all the signs found in Kaunas, these signs are mostly brand or facility names used to create a taste of foreignness and quality not to be understood by the inhabitants of the area. Therefore, this high number does not reflect the actual capacity of the readers to understand the language. Russian made up a total of 0.4%, while German made up a total of 0.2% of all the public signs. A single case of Chinese and a single case of Italian were found. These made 0.1% of all the public signs each. To sum up, the state language dominates in all three researched cities. English is the most frequent foreign language used on public signs. The usage of the English language on public signs is the most frequent one in Tartu (32.2%). The LL of Mainz is influenced by the English language significantly less as only 18.7% of the signs had English on them. Other languages do not play any major role in the LL of Mainz as numbers of signs found in other languages are very low. In contrast, in Tartu Russian and Finnish dominate, thus reflecting a significant usage of Russian and Finnish in the area. Similarly to Mainz, no other languages, except English and Lithuanian, seem to appear in LL of the area in Kaunas.
5.2 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs in the Survey Areas
Public signs might be written in more than one language or have elements from other languages. These multilingual signs reflect the extent to which the inhabitants of the area are able to use or understand other languages. Until now the present thesis dealt with the composition of the LL as a whole; however, to better understand the LL of 42 the researched areas, the linguistic composition of the signs themselves must be discussed. Table 7.2.1 gives some insight into the number of languages used on the signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas.
Table 5.2.1 Monolingual and multilingual signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas Mainz Tartu Kaunas
Number Percentages Number Percentages Number Percentages Monolingual 283 85.5% 230 72.8% 652 81.1% Multilingual 48 14.5% 86 27.2% 152 18.9%
Total 331 316 804
The table above reveals that in all the three cities the majority of signs are monolingual. Mainz has the lowest percentage of multilingual signs with only 14.5% of all the signs having more than one language on them. Out of 85.5% of monolingual signs, only less than 6% were written in a language other than German. The majority of the signs written in a foreign language (5.3%) were written in English. This demonstrates that after the state language English has the largest impact on the area. These results show that a high number of people living in the area are likely to be able to use and understand English. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the tourists visiting the area are most likely to use English for communication. A similar tendency can be observed in both Tartu and Kaunas. The signs written in the state language comprise the majority. However, as can be seen in table 5.2 above, Tartu has more multilingual signs than Kaunas and Mainz. Overall, 27.2% of all the signs found in Tartu were written in more than one language. Out of the monolingual signs 84.9% were written in Estonian, while almost 9% were written in English. A couple of cases with signs written only in Russian were found. Interestingly, these signs were unofficial; these signs include graffiti illegally put on the walls of buildings. An example of such inscription on the wall can be seen in figure 5.2.1. The existence of these signs demonstrates that the Russian speaking minority is present in the region; however, the official signing prefers using English rather than Russian. Moreover, this shows that the English language holds higher status than Russian or/and is a lingua franca between the minority and majority groups.
43
Figure 5.2.1 Russian graffiti found in Tartu
In Kaunas 88.5% of all the monolingual signs were written in Lithuanian. Surprisingly, 23.3% of the monolingual signs were written only in English. This shows that the usage of English on signs in Lithuanian is much more popular than in both Mainz and Tartu. This might be influenced by many factors. First of all, English might have higher status in Lithuania and is generally perceived more positively by the inhabitants than in the other two cities. It might also be an indication of the higher fluency in English in the research area or bigger numbers of tourists visiting the city. Similar results can be seen on multilingual signs. Table 5.2.2 above demonstrates languages found on signs in the survey areas in Mainz Kaunas and Tartu. Here (Table 5.2.2) SL stands for state language, which is German in Mainz, Estonian in Tartu and Lithuanian in Kaunas. Other languages are marked according to the official abbreviation of the country. In addition, the abbreviation LA stands for Latin. As can be observed in the data, the most common language to be put next to the state language is English in all the three cities. In both Tartu and Kaunas, cases of Russian next to the state language were found, revealing the Russian speaking readership in the area. Surprisingly, 4 cases of Latin, put next to the Lithuanian language, were found in Kaunas. However, all these cases were found on pharmacies where Latin is used as a proper language to describe herbs, drugs or name the drug store. Therefore, it should not be viewed as the evidence of the inhabitants’ ability to speak the language, but rather the way small businesses advertise and attract customers. Likewise, it could be argued that the 2 cases of French-Lithuanian signs 44 found in Kaunas indicate that the French language is used as a means of creating a foreign flavour and advertising the goods sold in the shops, rather than reflecting the actual fluency in the language of the residents of the area.
Table 5.2.2. Languages on multilingual signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu Languages Mainz Tartu Kaunas
TL-GB 43 76 138 TL-LA - - 4 TL-RU - 2 1 TL-FR - - 2 TL-TR 1 - - TL-CH 1 - 1 TL-IT - - 1 FR-GB - 1 1 RU-GB - 1 - JP-GB - 1 - EE-GB-FI - 1 - EE-GB-RU-FI - 2 - EE-GB-RU-FI-DE - 1 - DE-CH-GB 1 - - DE-GB-SP 1 - - LT-GB-RU - - 1 LT-GB-DE-FE - - 1 Total 47 86 152
Interestingly, in Germany only a few cases of German mixed with other languages were found. Turkish, Chinese and Spanish were used next to German. However, as there were only a few cases of these signs, it is very difficult to decide, whether these show actual abilities of the inhabitants to understand and communicate in these languages, or whether they are used to advertise foreign goods. To sum up, the majority of the signs found in all three research areas are monolingual. The larger part of the monolingual signs is written in the state language of the research area. The second language, which appears on most of the monolingual signs, is English. In Tartu more signs were written only in English than in the other two cities. Most multilingual signs have two languages on them; the state language of the country and English. In Tartu and Kaunas there were cases of state language used together with Russian, which demonstrates that Russian is still used in these areas. Single cases of some other language used next to the titular language were found; however, these are used mainly for advertising.
45
5.3 The Relation between Ethnic Minorities and Languages on Signs in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas
As mentioned in Section 2.3, one of the LL research features is that it might reveal what linguistic minority groups live in the area. However, this is not always the case whit LL as sometimes, even if the linguistic minority is present and relatively big, the signs in their language might not be present. In this section ethnic minorities and presence or absence of their language in the LL of the researched areas is discussed. As mentioned previously in Section 3.5, despite being the biggest city and the capital of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz is a highly homogeneous city. It is not surprising therefore that the majority of signs in Mainz are written in the German language with 88% of all inhabitants being ethnically German. However, since there are a few larger minority groups living in the city, an assumption was made that a number of signs written in the minority language should be present. Signs written in Turkish, Italian and Serbian, the language of the biggest minority groups in the area, were expected to be obtained. Nonetheless, as is seen in table 5.2.2 in the previous section, this did not live up to the expectations. Only one sign in Turkish was found. In addition, the sign written in Turkish was a proper name used as a name of the establishment. Therefore, it could be concluded that, even though the Turkish minority is living in the area, their language is not usually used in public signing. In addition, the same results can be seen with the second biggest minority in Mainz, i.e. the Italians. Only one sign in Italian was found. Moreover, no instances of usage of Serbian were found. On the other hand, several cases of the French language (the French community represents a significantly smaller minority in Mainz) were found. It could be argued that this is because French as a language holds a higher status and might be used for commercial purposes, while the Turkish or Serbian languages are not associated with high quality items and do not appeal to the customers in the same way as English or French do. Therefore, it can be inferred from the results that ethnic minorities do not influence the LL of Mainz. After Estonians, the biggest linguistic group in Tartu is Russians. Around 15% of all the residents of the city identify themselves as Russians. In addition, Ukrainians and Belarusians, who might be Russian speakers too, are the third and fourth biggest minority groups in the city. With such a huge minority group, Russian was expected 46 to appear more extensively in the LL of the city. However, only nine signs with Russian inscriptions on them were recorded. German, which is spoken by a small minority community living in the city composing only 0.12% of all the inhabitants and identifying themselves as Germans, was present in the area with two signs found in German. As could have already been understood, the minority groups in Tartu do not have an extensive impact on the usage of language on public signs, as the number of signs written in minority languages is very low. Out of the three cities, Kaunas is the most monolingual city with around 94% Lithuanian population living in the city. Similarly to Tartu, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles are the largest minority groups in Kaunas. However, the percentages of Russian speakers are very low in comparison with Tartu. Only around 3.8% of the population identify themselves as Russians, while Ukrainians, Poles and Belarusians collectively do not even combine one percent of the population. Therefore, it is not surprising that the minorities in Kaunas do not influence the LL of the city. To sum up, in Kaunas and Mainz the numbers of minority groups are too low to influence the LL of the area. In Tartu the language of the biggest minority group is present; however, the signs written in it are not as frequent as expected. Therefore, it could be concluded that in all three cities the minority groups do not impact the linguistic scenery of the territory.
5.4 The Relation between Annual Tourist flows and Language on Signs in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas
According to Kasanga (2012), language use on public signs reflects what languages are locally relevant or what languages are becoming locally relevant. Therefore, the language of tourists who often visit the area is likely to be used in public signs. This is because business owners try to appeal to foreign customers. One of the questions raised in this research was, whether or not tourists influence the LL of the researched areas. This part of the present thesis deals with the relation of annual tourist flows and foreign language(s) on signs in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu.
47
18 16 14 12 10 8 6 Mainz 4 Tartu 2 Kaunas 0
Figure 5.4.1 Annual tourist flows in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu by countries of origins
Figure 5.4.1 above indicates annual tourist flows in the three cities, as discussed in the previous chapters. As it can be observed in the table above, the British and Irelanders (16.7%), Danes (14.7%), Norwegians (14.2%), and Australians (13.7%) are the biggest tourist groups visiting Mainz annually. It could be claimed that these tourist groups influence the usage of English in public signing. Moreover, even though Danish and Norwegian signs were not found, these tourist groups are most likely to use English for communication purposes while visiting Mainz. Therefore, it could be argued that English on public signs is used both as the language of the biggest tourist groups visiting Mainz annually and as the lingua franca to communicate with tourists with a non-English native language. Not surprisingly, the biggest ethnic tourist group which visits Tartu annually is that of neighbouring Latvians. Around 11% of all tourists visiting the city are Latvians. However, only one Latvian sign was found. The second biggest tourist group visiting Tartu is Germans (7%). However, similarly to the Latvian case, only 2 signs with German inscriptions were found. Other significant tourist groups visiting Tartu annually are Americans (5%), French (5%), Lithuanians (5%), Swedish (4%), Finnish (4%), and Spanish (3%). It is difficult to decide whether the Americans visiting Tartu influence the high number of English public signs. It is more likely that English is used as a lingua franca for all the foreigners as Americans are not the
48 biggest tourist group visiting Tartu. Therefore, it could be assumed that annual tourist flows have only the impact of the implementation of English as lingua franca. The biggest tourist groups visiting Kaunas annually are the Spanish (15%), Czechs (14%) and Poles (13%). However, no signs in these languages were found in Kaunas. Interestingly, 3 signs in Russian (the language of the fourth biggest tourist group) were found. The number is far too small to claim that Russian speaking tourists have any significant influence on the language on the sign in Kaunas. Other significant ethnic minorities visiting Kaunas are Norwegians (8%) and French (8%). No Norwegian signs were found in Kaunas, however, 9 signs which had French inscriptions were recorded. Nevertheless, as mentioned before, these were mostly the proper names of the establishments and goods. It could not be claimed that French tourists impact the usage of languages in the LL of Kaunas. To summarise, the annual tourist flows have no impact on the language usage on public signs in Kaunas and Tartu as signs in the languages of the biggest tourist groups are not present. In addition, even though the biggest tourist groups in Mainz come from English speaking countries, English is used as the lingua franca for all non-German speakers. Therefore, the annual tourist flows do not influence the usage of language on public signs in Mainz either.
5.5 The Usage of Language on Private and Governmental Signs
Linguistic and semiotic properties of a sign are influenced by various factors, one of which is the type of sign. As discussed in the previous sections, signs can be written by governmental agencies or by private actors. The usage of the language in these two different categories varies; therefore, in order to investigate the LL of the researched areas, careful investigation of the language use of these two different types of signs must be carried out. This section compares and contrasts the usage of language on governmental and private signs in the three cities. As could have been expected, the number of government signs in all three cities is lower than that of private signs. In Mainz, for example, the government signs comprised only 11.2% of all the signs. The percentage of signs issued by the governmental institutions is even less in Kaunas, where these signs amount to only 49
10.6% of all the signs. Surprisingly, in Tartu there are almost three times more government signs, in comparison to Mainz and Kaunas. The government signs amount to 29.4% of all the signs. The complete table of signs issued by government agencies and by private actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu can be found in table 5.5.1 below. Table 5.5.1 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs Issued by Government Agencies and by Private Actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu Mainz Tartu Kaunas
Number Percentages Number Percentages Number Percentages Governmental Signs 37 11.2% 93 29.4% 85 10.6% Private Signs 281 88.8% 223 70.6% 719 89.4%
Total 331 316 804
In order to fully investigate the LL of the researched areas, the governmental and private signs were first investigated according to the number of languages present on the signs. In other words, the governmental or private signs were coded as being multilingual or monolingual. The distribution of monolingual and multilingual signs on governmental and private signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu is presented in table 5.5.2 below.
Table 5.5.2 Multilingual and monolingual signs issued by government agencies and by private actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu
Mainz Tartu Kaunas MON MUL MON MUL MON MUL Governmental Signs 95% 5% 63% 37% 79% 21% Private Signs 75% 15% 78% 22% 88% 18% Total 331 316 804
The results show that in Mainz the government signs tend to be monolingual as only two signs which had more than one language on them were found. Only 5% of all the government signs were multilingual in Mainz. The numbers of multilingual and monolingual government signs in Tartu are very different. 35 cases of multilingual and 58 cases of monolingual government signs were found; multilingual signs made a total of 37% of all the government signs. This shows that in Tartu it is more common to put multilingual government signs as more than one third of the government signs were multilingual. In Kaunas only 18 multilingual government
50 signs were found. This made up 21% of all the government signs. This shows that, even though it is more common to write government signs in more than one language in Kaunas than in Mainz, Tartu has the most governmental multilingual signs. The reasons for this might be numerous. One of them is that Mainz and Kaunas are more homogeneous, thus, they are in a lesser need of multilingual signs. Interestingly, even though more cases of private signs with multilingual inscriptions were found, the overall percentages of multilingual signs in Tartu and Kaunas are lower than those of the governmental multilingual signs. In Tartu only 22% of all the private signs had multilingual inscriptions, while in Kaunas only 18% of such signs were found. In Mainz, however, 15% of all the multilingual signs had multilingual inscriptions, which shows that, in contrast to Kaunas and Tartu, in Mainz it is more common to put up private signs with multilingual inscriptions on them. Tartu again has the highest number of multilingual signs, compared to Kaunas and Mainz. In Kaunas 18% of all the private signs were written in more than one language. Therefore, as is the case of government signs, Tartu seems to have the highest percentage of multilingual signs, followed by Kaunas and Mainz respectively.
Table 5.5.3 Combinations of languages on signs issued by government agencies and by private actors in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu Language Mainz Tartu Kaunas Government Private Government Private Government Private TL 94.6% 74.2% 44.2% 69.3% 77.6% 71.1% GB - 5.1% 3.1% 7.6% 1.2% 9.2% OL - 0.7% 15.1% 0.4% - 1.1%
TL-GB 5.4% 13.9% 36.5% 19.3% 20% 16.8% TL-RU - - 1.1% 0.9% - 0.1% TL-TR - 0.3% - - - - TL-OL - 5.1% - - 1.2% 1.1% GB-OL - - 1.3% - 0.1% TL-GB-OL - 1% - 0.4% - 0.3% TL-GB-OL-OL - - - 0.4% - 0.1% TL-GB-OL-OL- - - - 0.4% - - OL Total 37 295 93 223 85 719
The main question to answer when analysing the choice of the language(s) on private and government signs is the following: what languages are preferred on these signs? The distribution of languages on government and private signs in the survey areas in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas is presented in table 5.5.3 above. As the results
51 indicate, the state language is preferred on both government and private signs in all three cities. On private signs, the English language alone is used rarely. In Mainz only 5.1% of all the signs were written in English. In Tartu only 7.6% of all the private signs had English inscriptions on them. The highest percentage of the private sign written only in English was found in Kaunas with 9.2% of all the signs being written only in English. The governmental signs written only in English are rare in both Kaunas and Tartu. In Kaunas only 8 instances of such signs were found, whereas in Tartu only one instance was identified. No example of a governmental sign written only in English were found in Mainz. In both private and government signs the combinations of state languages and English have the largest amount of signs in all three cities. In Mainz 13.9% of all the private signs were written in German and English. In Kaunas the percentage is slightly higher with 16.8% of all the private multilingual signs being written in Lithuanian and English. Tartu has the largest number of private signs written in Estonian and English with 19.3% of all the private signs being written in these languages. In all three cities the percentages of private signs written in the titular language of the country and English appear to be fairly similar. However, different tendencies can be seen from the data of government signs. Only 5% of all the signs in Mainz were written in German and English, while in Tartu around 36.5% of all the government signs were written in Estonian and English. In Kaunas there is a fairly high number of government signs written in Lithuanian and English as well. Around 20% of all the government signs in Kaunas had Lithuanian-English inscriptions. As seen in table 5.5.3 above, other languages do not play any major role on either government or private signs in the three cities. However, the number of other languages on government signs seems to be higher in Tartu, with 13 signs written in other language than the state language or English. This high number can be traced back to the fountain “Kissing Students” which was discussed previously. Therefore, these results do not actually reveal the distribution of other languages in government signs. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that other languages do not appear on government or private signs much and, thus, do not influence the LL of the researched region significantly.
52
To conclude with, a state language is preferred on both the government and private signs. The second most popular language on private and government signs is English. Other languages do not play any major role on neither government nor private signs in the three cities. In Tartu government signs seem to be written in the state language and English more often than in private signs. The percentage of government signs written in state language and English is the highest in Tartu and the lowest in Mainz. In addition, the LL of Mainz and Kaunas seems to be more homogeneous than in Tartu.
5.6 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs for Different Establishments
Edelman (2011:12) argues that the choice of language on signs might also depend on type of establishments that put up the signs. Therefore, in order to fully understand the LL of the area and how it is shaped by different factors, the type of the establishment, in which multilingual and monolingual signs appear, should be investigated. For the purpose of this research, 12 types of establishments encountered the most were distinguished, namely, bus or railway stations, gastronomy facilities, shops, hostels and hotels, tourism centres, banks, hairdressers’ salons, health centres, government facilities, cinemas and theatres, living houses, and others. For a full explanation on how the categories were classified, see Appendix A. This section examines the usage of language on public signs according to the type of establishment the signs belong to. Table 5.6.1 presents the distribution of monolingual and multilingual signs in all 11 distinguished types of establishments in the three researched cities. As the results show, in all the cities the health care centres (hospitals, dentist offices and other health care facilities) had no multilingual signs, and 100% of the signs were monolingual. This suggests that health care centres expect only local inhabitants who can speak the state language to be their clients. In addition, in both Mainz and Tartu tourist centres had only monolingual signs, while in Kaunas 20% of all the tourist centres had multilingual signs. This might be an indication that in both Mainz and Tartu the tourist centres most commonly serve people, who speak the state language. In contrast, the tourist centres of Kaunas are more flexible about their language use. 53
There might be multiple reasons why tourist centres in Kaunas use English in advertising. The use of English might be helpful in attracting customers from other countries. Another explanation might be that tourist centres in Kaunas try to appeal to the clients by the use of a supposedly more prestigious language, i.e. English, as all the multilingual signs in Kaunas tourist centres were in both English and Lithuanian.
Table 7.6.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs in the 11 types of establishments (percentages)
MAINZ BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON 63.6 75.4 86.5 50 100 96.3 16.7 100 100 87.5 100 92.1 MUL 36.4 24.5 13.5 50 - 3.7 83.3 - - 12.5 - 7.8 TARTU BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON 100 59.3 90.6 66.7 100 100 66.7 100 100 100 75 79.2 MUL - 40.7 9.4 33.3 - - 33.3 - - - 25 20.8 KAUNAS BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON - 74.3 88.5 58.8 80 75 60 100 94.7 90.9 93.2 74.4 MUL - 25.7 11.5 41.2 20 25 40 - 5.3 9.1 6.8 25.6
Another facility that had particularly low numbers of multilingual signs in all the three cities is governmental facilities. Once again in both Mainz and Tartu 100% of the signs in governmental facilities were written only in the state language. In Kaunas only 5.3% of all signs on governmental facilities had more than one language on them. In addition, banks seem to be another establishment in all the three cities that rarely uses multilingual signs. In Mainz 96.3% of all the banks had monolingual signs on them. In Tartu 100% of all the banks used the Estonian language on outside signs. In Kaunas the percentage is somewhat lower with only 75% of all the banks using only monolingual signs. The establishments, in which monolingual signs were the most frequent in all three cities, were, as could have been expected, hostels and gastronomy facilities. In Mainz 24.4% of all gastronomy facilities had multilingual signs, in Tartu – 40.7% and in Kaunas – 25.7%. The numbers of multilingual signs put up by hostels are even higher. In Mainz, 50% of all the hostels had multilingual signs. In Tartu, 33.3% of all the hostels had multilingual signs, while in Kaunas – 41.2%. However, the most surprising results obtained were from the hairdressers’ salons as these seem to be the 54 most multilingual establishments, in comparison to others. 83.3% of all the hairdressers’ salons in Mainz had multilingual inscriptions on them, whereas in Kaunas the percentage is 40%, and in Tartu – 33.3%. The percentages are lower in Kaunas and Tartu than in Mainz; however, they are still higher if compared to the majority of other establishments. The languages used on multilingual and monolingual signs on these 11 types of establishments are fairly similar. On multilingual signs the combination of a state language and English was the most common one in all three cities. For more detailed information on the use language in 11 distinguished establishments, see Appendix C. As the results demonstrate, in Mainz English is most commonly encountered on shops and gastronomy facilities. Other languages appeared only on these same types of establishments. In Mainz, a case of Turkish, Italian and two cases of French were found on the signs of gastronomy facilities. One instance of the usage of the Spanish language was found in a clothing shop sign in Mainz. No other language was used on any other of the distinguished establishments in Mainz. As the results indicate, similarly as in Mainz, gastronomy facilities had the largest variety of languages. Along with Estonian, English was encountered on gastronomy facilities 26 times. Moreover, three cases of Finnish and Russian were found. In addition, the Chinese and German languages were discovered on gastronomy facilities in Tartu as well. Unlike Mainz, in Tartu signs on residential houses in a language other than state were found. Two cases of Russian on residential houses were identified in Tartu. Similarly to Mainz and Kaunas, gastronomy establishments seem to have the largest variety of languages. Together with 71 cases of English usage in gastronomy facilities in Kaunas, French was used twice and Italian was used 3 times. As for the shop signs, English was come across 55 times and French was recorded 5 times. To conclude with, in all three cities, governmental facilities, health centres and tourist centres tend to use mostly monolingual signs. The most multilingual establishments are gastronomy facilities, shops, hostels and hairdressers’ salons. In all 11 types of establishments English is the most common language after the state language. Cases of other languages might be found in these establishments but the numbers are very low.
55
5.7 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs on 7 Shop Sectors
In order to determine, whether the language usage depends on the type of shop that the signs belong to, a separate research was carried out. The shop signs were divided according to the goods and services the shops provide. For the purposes of this study, these shops were classified into 7 categories: pharmacy, housewares, assorted goods, books, electronics and music, clothing, and other, as explained in Chapter 4. The present part of the thesis contrasts and compares the usage of language in these 7 shop sectors in Mainz, Tartu and Kaunas. In table 5.7.1 it can be seen that in Mainz the largest numbers of multilingual signs were found in the shops for housewares (33.3%), electronics (22.7%) and assorted goods (23%). What is more, a number of multilingual signs were found in the shops which were marked as belonging to other. 13% of the shops coded as other had multilingual signs. In addition, in pharmacy, multilingual signs amounted only up to 4.3%. Surprisingly, no multilingual signs in the bookstores and clothing shops were found. In Tartu housewares (33.3%) and electronics (40%) have the largest amount of multilingual signs. Pharmacy had significantly higher percentage of multilingual signs (15%) in Tartu than in Mainz. However, unlike in Mainz, the data gathered in Tartu show that shops, selling assorted goods, had 100% monolingual signs. Similarly to Mainz, Tartu had no multilingual signs in the clothing and bookstore categories. Completely different results can be seen in Kaunas where the categories containing the largest number of multilingual signs were clothing (12.4%) and assorted goods (11.4%). Furthermore, as table 5.7.1 demonstrates, pharmacy (9.7%), housewares (8.4%) and books (8.4%) had almost similar numbers of multilingual signs in Kaunas, thus, revealing a relatively similar usage of more than one language in these sectors. In addition, unlike Tartu and Mainz, Kaunas has a zero percentage of multilingual signs in the category of electronic goods.
56
Table 5.7.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs in 7 shop sectors (percentages)
MAINZ P H E&M C AS B Other MUL 4.3 33.3 22.7 - 23 - 13 MON 95.7 66.7 77.3 100 77 100 87 TARTU P H E&M C AS B Other MUL 15 33.3 40 - - - 6.3 MON 85 66.7 60 100 100 100 93.7 KAUNAS P H E&M C AS B Other MUL 8.4 - 12.4 11.3 8.4 4.2 MON 90.3 91.6 100 87.6 87.7 91.6 95.8
As the results in Appendix D indicate, English is most commonly encountered after the state language in all 7 shop categories. In Mainz housewares shops had the highest number of English inscriptions on them. In total, 33% of all the signs had English inscriptions on public signs. Other groups where English is found more often were assorted goods (30%) and electronics and music (27%). English is less frequently used in clothing (15%) and pharmacy (8%) shops. Interestingly enough, no use of English was detected on the public signs which belong to bookstores. In contrast, in Tartu the electronic and music sector had the largest numbers of English inscriptions on public signs. In total, 60% of signs, which were identified as belonging to the category of electronic and music shops, had English writings. Pharmacies in Tartu had the second highest number of use of English: 20% of all the sings. The usage of English was also commonly found in the sector of clothing (14%) and assorted goods (14%). Surprisingly, no examples of English signs were identified in housewares shops. In Kaunas, as in Mainz, the highest number of English inscriptions was found in housewares shops: in total 47% of all signs had English writings on them. English was also commonly used on signs that belong to the sectors of clothing (25%) and assorted goods (21%). In the categories of pharmacy (12%), electronic and music (11%) and books (8%) English occurrences were rare. Unlike Tartu and Mainz, other languages were also encountered. In pharmacy Latin was used in 6% of all the signs, while French inscriptions appeared on 2% of the signs. In addition, the usage of French was identified in 7% of the signs belonging to housewares sector and 3% of signs belonging to the clothing sector.
57
To sum up, in 7 shop categories in the three cities English is most commonly used, along with the state language. The usage of the English language in Mainz is most common in the sectors of housewares, assorted goods and electronic and music. In Tartu English is most frequently used in electronics and music and pharmacy sectors. In Kaunas English usage is most popular in clothing and assorted goods sectors.
5.8 Monolingual and Multilingual Signs for Different Types of Signs
According to Edelman (2001:105), linguistic and semiotic properties of a sign might also be influenced by the type of a sign. For the purpose of this thesis, 10 most commonly encountered signs were distinguished: name of an establishment, security sign, other shop sign, street or road sign, sticker, poster, graffiti, monument, menu and, nameplate. The signs which could not be attributed to any of these categories were marked as other. This section compares and contrasts the usage of language on different types of signs in the three researched cities. Firstly, the signs were categorised as multilingual or monolingual. Table 5.8.1 presents the distribution of monolingual and multilingual signs in the three research areas. As the results show, street and road signs, stickers, graffiti, monuments and nameplates in Mainz were all monolingual. The highest percentage of multilingual signs in Mainz was found on outside menus: 42.9% of all the menus were written in more than one language. In addition, security information, names of establishments and other shop signs have a high percentage of multilingual signs too (17.2%, 33.3% and 12.2% respectfully). Surprisingly, in Tartu the highest percentage (72%) of multilingual signs was found on street and road signs. In addition, 60% of the outside menus were written in more than one language. Interestingly, 50% of graffiti signs found in Tartu were multilingual. In contrast, the lowest percentage of multilingualism on signs in Tartu was found on stickers (7.1%), names of establishments (16.7%) and monuments (18.2%). Surprisingly, all the security signs in Tartu were monolingual.
58
Table 5.8.1 Multilingual and monolingual signs on different type of signs in the three researched areas Mainz Tartu Kaunas MUL MON MUL MON MUL MON Name of establishment 17.2% 82.8% 16.7% 83.3% 14.8% 85.2% Security information 33.3% 66.7% - 100% - 100% Other shop sign 12.2% 87.8% 22.2% 77.8% 18.4% 81.6% Street sign - 100% 72% 28% - 100% Sticker - 100% 7.1% 92.9% 50% 50% Poster 30% 70% 20.9% 79.1% 29.9% 70.1% Graffiti - 100% 50% 50% - 100% Monument - 100% 18.2% 81.8% 12.9% 87.1% Menu 42.9% 57.1% 60% 40% 66.7% 33.3% Nameplate - 100% - - - - Other 3.4% 96.6% 6.9% 93.1% 7.2% 92.8%
The results in Kaunas are more similar to those in Mainz. The highest number of multilingualism was found on outside menus. 66.7% of all the menus found in Kaunas displayed more than one language in them. In addition, almost 30% of all the posters in Kaunas were written in two or more languages. Like in Mainz, the lowest percentage of multilingual signs can be seen in graffiti (0%), street or road signs (0%) and monuments (12.9%). However, unlike Mainz, in Kaunas 50% of all the stickers were identified to be written in more than one language. What is more, while more than 30% of the security signs in Mainz were multilingual, in Kaunas no multilingual security information signs were found. As was expected, the combination of the state and English languages in multilingual signs were the most frequent one. The highest percentage of English- German usage was found on outside menus: 30% of all the signs had English and German languages on them. In addition, 25% of all the security information signs, 23% of posters and 20% of stickers found in Mainz contained German and English. Turkish, French and Italian were used together with German on the name of an establishment. All of these comprised roughly 1% of all the name signs. A couple of cases of French and Spanish were found on other shop signs and posters. However, these did not exceed 2% of all the posters and other shop signs. As the table in Appendix E indicates, in Tartu English-Estonian combinations appeared most often on outside street signs: 42% of all the street signs had English- Estonian inscriptions. The English-Estonian combinations were also fairly common on stickers (33%), outside menus (26%), and graffiti art (25%). The Russian-Estonian
59 language combination appeared recurrently on outside menus (13%), monuments (8%) and stickers (7%). The Russian language alone was used on all of the security information signs (100%). However, it must be noted that this high percentage is due to the low number of security information signs found in Tartu. Interestingly, the Russian language alone is often used on graffiti signs: more than 25% of all the graffiti were written only in Russian. This might be an indication that the Russian minority, since Russian does not appear in official public signs, demonstrate their protest with unofficial signing. Interestingly, the Finnish language appeared almost as often as Russian on outside menus, as 13% of all the outside menus had Finnish inscriptions on them. Moreover, cases of Finnish were also identified on posters. Similarly as in Tartu and Mainz, in Kaunas the most common combination on multilingual signs is Lithuanian and English. The highest percentage of this combination is found on the outside menus. 40% of all the menus found in the researched area in Kaunas contained Lithuanian and English. Other types of signs, in which the usage of English and Lithuanian was often encountered, were street signs (33%), graffiti (27%), and names of establishments (27%). In contrast, the English language was never used on security information signs. Moreover, only 9% of all the monuments and 18% of all the other shop signs had English translations on them. Interestingly, all the stickers found in Kaunas were written in English only. Cases of other languages were found on names of establishments, other shop signs and posters. 2% of all the names of the establishments had French inscriptions and 1% of signs had Italian, Latin and Chinese inscriptions on them. Cases of other shop signs were found in Russian and French, which amounted to 1% each.
5.9 Language Order, Font and Amount of Text in Multilingual Signs
One of the factors which might show the attitude and position of the language in the area is the language order, language font and amount of text in multilingual signs. According to Edelman (2001:12), these factors might reveal the relative status and position of that language in the survey area. The language which has a higher status or is spoken by the majority of the speakers in the area tends to go before the language with the lower status. Likewise, it might be written in a larger font or have a 60 larger amount of text in it. Therefore, one of the ways to examine the LL of the area in concern is to investigate the order, font and amount of text in different languages on multilingual signs found in that area. As the results in Appendix F show, the most common order of the languages in multilingual signs in Mainz is that of German followed by the English or vice versa. The amount of signs, in which the language order is German-English, is almost the same as that of English-German. This shows that the status of both languages is relatively similar. Almost all other multilingual signs found in Mainz had German as the first language followed by another language. If more than two languages were displayed on the signs, German came first, then it was followed by English, and then by the third language. Only one case where another language, namely Chinese, was displayed first was found. However, it could be argued that, once again, Chinese was used for illustrative purposes only. That is to say, instead of performing the role of language, it worked more like a picture, as the customers of the restaurant that the sign was found on were unlikely to be able to read it. 66 cases where the language order was Estonian followed by English were found in Tartu. In contrast, only 11 examples where English was used before Estonian were found. This shows that in Tartu, as well as probably in an entire country, Estonian holds higher status than any other language. This could be explained by the nationalistic history of the country and strict language policy rules. Only three cases where Estonian was followed only by Russian were found. Only in one case Russian was followed by the Estonian language. Since the number of the examples obtained is small, it is difficult to generalize. However, knowing the existing struggle between Russian-speaking community and language policies in Estonia, it could be argued that Russian is perceived as having lower status than Estonian and is used for translational purposes only. Two cases where other languages were followed by English were found in Tartu. However, these were names of establishments used as proper names. In cases where three and more languages were used, the first language was always Estonian followed by English, Russian, Finnish and other language(s) in this order. Thus, it could be determined that
61
Estonian holds the highest status. The English language seems to hold the second place in the hierarchy, while Russian is the third, and Finnish is the forth. The difference between the Lithuanian-English and English-Lithuanian order in Kaunas is as huge as in Tartu. 94 signs which had the Lithuanian-English language sequence were identified. In contrast, 35 signs had English as the first language to appear on the signs and Lithuanian as the second. This shows that, like in Estonia, the Lithuanian language holds higher status and prestige than English or any other language. Cases of other languages used after Lithuanian were found. Namely, Lithuanian was followed by Latin inscriptions in drug store signs. Only one case where more than three languages were used on a public sign was documented. In this case the order of the languages was Lithuanian-English-Russian. Even though it is hard to generalise from such small numbers, knowing the history of the country and the fact that Russian was recently regarded as lingua franca of the region, it could still be claimed that this language order represents the hierarchy of the language in the region. Another factor which might determine the role and status of the language is the font in which foreign and state languages are written on multilingual signs.
Table 5.9.1 The result concerning the different font sizes in multilingual signs
Font Diff MAINZ TARTU KAUNAS TL-GB 35 61 91 TL-OL - 2 7 TL-GB/OL 1 - - GB-TL-OL 1 - 1 OL-GB - 4 1 EE-GB-FI-RU - 2 -
LT-GB-DE-FE - - 1 Total 38 69 90
As the results in table 5.9.1 indicate, the font size differed mainly between the state language and the language used after it. For example, in the majority of cases, where the font size was used for different languages in Mainz, the separation was made between English and German. In addition to these few cases, in Mainz there were more instances where the font was different between German and the other two languages included in the sign. In these cases the foreign languages were written in the same font, while German was highlighted with a different font. Similar tendencies
62 were observed in Kaunas and Tartu. The titular language is most often distinguished by the use of different font, while another language or languages are written in a more simple and plain font. In Tartu and Kaunas, as couple of cases where the distinction between English and other language was made by the usage of different font was found. In these cases English was highlighted by the usage of more dominant and eye catching font. Figures 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 illustrate the usage of different fonts in multilingual signs.
Figure 5.9.1 The usage of dominant font for English inscriptions
Figure 5.9.2 The usage of subordinate font for English inscriptions
As the data in table 5.9.2 bellow indicate, in Mainz the amount of the text in multilingual signs was the same in only in 12.5% of all the multilingual signs. In comparison, in Tartu 80.2% of all the signs had the same amount of text in them. In Kaunas the percentages are a little bit lower, with 63.3% of all the signs having the same amount of text in them. There might be multiple reasons for such dissimilarities
63 between results in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu. One of these is that in Kaunas and Tartu more signs imply direct word by word translations, whereas in Mainz free translation is used more often.
Table 5.9.2 Amount of text in multilingual signs Amount of text Mainz Tartu Kaunas Number Percentages Number Percentages Number Percentages Same 6 12.5% 69 80.2% 96 63.3% Different 42 87.5% 17 19.8% 56 36.7% Total 48 86 152
To conclude, in Mainz English and German languages could be deemed to be holding the same status as the amount of signs in which German is followed or preceded by English is almost the same. In Tartu Estonian holds the highest prestige. The second language, according to the hierarchy, is English, followed by Russian and then by Finnish. In Kaunas, as in Tartu, the state language, which is Lithuanian, holds the highest status. English is the second, according to the hierarchy. The status of English could be considered to be higher in Lithuania than that in Estonia, as more cases of English followed by Lithuanian were found in Kaunas than in Tartu. The third language in Lithuania, according to the hierarchy, is Russian. The font size is differentiated mainly between the state language and foreign language(s) in all three cities. In the majority of the multilingual signs in Kaunas and Tartu the amount of text is the same, while in the majority of multilingual signs in Mainz the amount of text differs.
5.10 Implementation of Language Policies in Multilingual Signs in the Three Cities
One of the most interesting tendencies the LL research might reveal is whether or not the language laws and policies are executed in the survey area. The strict execution of language law signals the respect and status of the languages in concern. Moreover, the execution or ignorance towards the state language policy reflects the attitudes towards language laws in the area. Therefore, the present part of the thesis compares and contrasts, how language laws and policies are executed in three survey areas in concern.
64
As mentioned in Chapter 3, laws of the German language are not implemented in constitution, making German de facto state language only and leaving the language issues to be dealt by separate states in their preferred way. Therefore, there are no official laws regulating, how public signs should be written. The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, whose capital city is Mainz, has no defined language laws and policies. Thus, all language issues are addressed and dealt with in accordance to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages policies. Therefore, as defined by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, all regional and minority languages have to be promoted and the states must facilitate and encourage the use of such languages in speech, writing, public and private life. However, this state policy is not reflected in the LL of the survey area. As presented in the previous sections, only one instance of the Turkish, which is the biggest minority group, was identified in Mainz. In addition, only a few cases of other minority language, present in Mainz were found. Moreover, in all cases the minority languages were used as a proper name, mostly for the names of the establishments. Therefore, it might be argued that in Mainz the authorities are not concerned with regional and minority language promotion as no official government signs were provided in minority languages. As discussed in Chapter 3, the laws of the Estonian language are particularly strict. The official status of the Estonian language is noted and implemented in the Constitution of Estonia. However, Law of the Republic of Estonia on Language does not specify, how the language should be used on public signs as no official rules exist that would define, how multilingual or monolingual signs must be written. Therefore, since no official rules exist, no preference for the language usage on multilingual signs should exist. However, as it can be inferred from the results in Section 5.9, the Estonian language in Tartu almost always was used firs and in the larger font size in multilingual signs. Nonetheless, as there are no official language laws regulating how public signs must be written, it could be claimed that the language usage on signs follows the Estonian language policies. The results discussed in Section 5.9 explain why the use of language on signs is not officially defined in the Constitution of Estonia. Estonian is viewed as the prestigious language, and the use of it in public signs might symbolize loyalty to the country. Therefore, the usage of other languages
65 alone or Estonian as a supplementary language might be viewed as inappropriate by the general public. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania declares that Lithuanian is the only state language, which has to be controlled and used in public life. The usage of the Lithuanian language is strictly determined and controlled by the state officials. Thus, it is no wonder that the language usage on signs in Lithuania is strictly defined in the official language policy of the state. As mentioned in Chapter 3, according to the laws of Lithuania, Lithuanian is the only language to be used in public signs. The only instance when the use of other language is allowed in public signing is when the establishment, which put the sign, belongs to the officially recognized minority organization. However, even in this case, the language of the minority has to be written in a smaller font size and preceded by the Lithuanian inscription in a larger font. However, it must be pointed out that the majority of the Lithuanians, especially business owners, who put up unofficial signs, seem to be unaware of this particular language law. The results discussed in Section 5.9 illustrate this, as a huge number of signs that contradict this language law on public signing were found in Kaunas. There might be multiple reasons for such a result. One of the reasons might be that the usage of other languages is useful to the small business owners, thus, they choose to ignore language laws. Moreover, it might be that the state is not executing strict punishments for the incorrect usage of languages in multilingual signs. To conclude, in Mainz the state officials are not promoting the usage of official minority languages as no examples, where these languages are used in government signs, were found. Since no official language laws or policies regulating the usage of language on public signing exist in Estonia, it could be claimed that no multilingual signs were made against the state laws. However, Estonian has such high prestige in Tartu that its usage before any other language would probably be regarded as inappropriate. Even though Lithuania has strict laws regulating the usage of language on public signs, these are rarely followed.
5.11 Language Landscape and Vitality
The choice of one language over the other reflects the symbolic value and mark the identity of the actors who put up the signs. Moreover, identity issues and prestige of 66 the language in question might be identified by the choice of language in public signs. Therefore, LL research gives the observable and immediate index of the relative power and status of the linguistic communities inhabiting a given territory. This index is reoffered as the ethnolinguistic vitality of the speech community. The ethnolinguistic vitality helps to understand the strength and power the linguistic community possesses. These observations might help to predict the future of the speech community, whether it will precede and grow, stay the same or be assimilated by the larger speech community. In this section, the ethnolinguistic vitality of the speech communities present in the survey areas will be discussed. As the results in the previous sections show, in all surveyed areas the state languages flourish and hold strong status and power. Thus, it is safe to assume that none of the three state languages in question are facing any serious threat to be assimilated. Therefore, the speech communities of all these languages will continue to exist and be the most used language in the surveyed areas. However, completely different tendencies could be observed by looking at other speech communities living in the surveyed areas. For example, from the observation of LL in Mainz, the biggest speech community, the Turkish linguistic minority, is almost completely silent. In other words, public signs in Turkish language are non-existent. As discussed in Chapter 3, the factors influencing language and identity maintenance of outer-groups are demography, institutional support the group receives and status the language community holds (Sachdev and Bourhis 1990). Thus, as the surveyed area is inhabited mainly by the German population and the usage of language of the minority groups is not promoted in public life and because the minority language holds no relative strength and power, it can be concluded that the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Turkish minority is low in the surveyed area. Therefore, the Turkish speech community will most likely cease to exist in the future. Thus, the Turkish speech community members in Mainz are facing a threat of being assimilated by the German speakers. The same can be argued about other linguistic minorities living in Mainz as the numbers of these minorities are even lesser and no significant amount of signs in their languages were found. As the results in previous sections indicate, the largest minority group in Tartu, the Russians, are not facing the threat of being assimilated. Even though, the
67 number of signs in the Russian language found in Tartu is small, the Russian language is still present. Moreover, as a minority speech community, the Russians can enjoy a huge number of signs in Russian, in comparison to other minorities living in Tartu or even the biggest minority groups in Kaunas and Mainz. Certainly, because of the political situation and national ideas existing in Estonia (namely that the usage of Estonian language shows the loyalty to the country), it is difficult to determine the linguistic vitality of the Russian minority group. However, it is safe to assume that Russian minority will not cease to exist in Tartu any time soon. In Kaunas, however, just as in Mainz, the ethnolinguistic vitality of speech communities other than Lithuanian must be categorised as being low, as the numbers of the linguistic minorities are very small. Moreover, unlike Germany, Lithuania did not sign the European Charter for regional and minority rights, thus, the country is not committed to help the regional minorities to protect and cherish their languages and culture. In addition to that, the usage of minority languages on signs that do not belong to the official minority establishments is prohibited by law. What is more, another apparent evidence of the low power and prestige of the minority languages is the low number of public signs in the surveyed area. Therefore, it can be concluded that the minority groups eventually will be assimilated in Kaunas. To sum up, the ethnolinguistic vitality of the state languages in all three cities is high and none of the languages face the threat of extinction in the survey area. In comparison, the minority groups living in Mainz and Kaunas face a threat of being assimilated in the future. In Tartu, however, the Russian community appears to hold a strong ethnolinguistic vitality and faces no threats of assimilation.
68
6. CONCLUSIONS
The LL research in the three cities showed that state language is used most frequently on public signs in all the three cities. The foreign language used mostly on public signs in all three cities is English. In Tartu 32.2% of all the signs had English inscriptions on public signs making it the city with most English inscription in the researched areas. The LL in Mainz is influenced least by English as only 18.7% of all the signs had English inscriptions on them. In Mainz and Kaunas other languages do not play any major role in the LL of the areas as numbers of signs, which use other languages, are very low. In contrast, in Tartu Russian and Finnish inscriptions are common. The majority of the signs found in all three research areas are monolingual. The monolingual signs are mostly written in the state language of the area (more than 70% of all the signs). English is the second language which most commonly appeared alone on public signs. Tartu had the highest number of signs written only in English. On multilingual signs English was most commonly used together with the state language in all research areas. Cases of other language usage together with state language were also found; however, the numbers of such signs are very low in all the cities. Only in Tartu the usage of state language together with Russian was noticeable, but the numbers of these signs are still very small. Ethnic minorities do not influence the use of their language in public signs as the numbers of signs which used the languages of ethnic minorities are very low or non-existent in the researched areas. Only in Tartu, Russian, the language of the largest minority group in the area, is present; however, the numbers of signs which used Russian in them are very small. Likewise, in Mainz, Kaunas and Tartu annual tourist flows have no impact on the language usage on public signs. This is because the signs written in the language of the tourists who visit the city most frequently are not present. Though in Mainz the largest tourist groups come from English speaking countries, it could be argued that English is used as the lingua franca for all the non-German speakers. Thus, annual tourist flows do not influence the use of language on public signs in Mainz as well. As could have been expected, state language is preferred on both governmental and private signs. The foreign language used the most on both 69 governmental and private signs is English in all the cities. In Tartu multilingual governmental signs written in Estonian and English are more common than multilingual private signs. In contrast, in both Mainz and Kaunas the reverse tendency is seen. The percentage of multilingual signs written in the state language and English is highest in Tartu and lowest in Mainz. The study on the language usage on public signs on different types of establishments shows that in all the three cities, governmental facilities, health centres and tourist centres tend to use mostly monolingual signs. In contrast, the most multilingual establishments are gastronomy facilities, shops, hostels and hairdresser’s salons. Moreover, the results reveal that in all 11 types of establishments (distinguished for the purpose of this study), English is the most commonly used foreign language. Signs in other languages in these establishments are very rare. The study of the language usage in 7 shop sectors showed that the foreign language dominating in these sectors is English. The English language usage is most common in the sectors of housewares, assorted goods and electronic and music in Mainz. In Tartu English is most frequently used in electronics and music and pharmacy sectors. In Kaunas English is most common in clothing and assorted goods sectors. The preference of specific foreign language usage on specific sectors, such as the use of the Latin language in pharmacy and French in clothing in Kaunas was detected. However, the number of these cases is very small. The study on language usage on different types of signs revealed that in Mainz street and road signs, stickers, graffiti, monuments and nameplates are written only in the German language. The highest percentage of multilingual signs in Mainz was found on outside menus; 42.9% of all the menus were written in more than one language, security information (33.3%) and names of establishments (17.2%). In contrast, in Tartu the highest percentage of multilingual signs were found on street and road signs (72%) and outside menus (60%). Surprisingly, 50% of graffiti signs, found in Tartu were multilingual. The lowest percentages of multilingual signs in Tartu were on stickers (7.1%), names of establishments (16.7%) and monuments (18.2%). In Kaunas the highest degree of multilingualism is found on outside menus (66.7%) and posters (30%). Like in Mainz, in Kaunas the lowest percentage of
70 multilingual signs can be seen in graffiti (0%), street or road signs (0%) and monuments (12.9%). As expected, the combinations of the state and English languages in multilingual signs were most frequent. The highest percentage of English-German usage in Mainz was found on outside menus (30%), security information signs (25%), posters (23%) and stickers (20%). In Tartu English-Estonian combinations appeared most often on outside street signs (42%), stickers (33%), outside menus (26%), and graffiti (25%). The Russian-Estonian language combination appeared recurrently on outside menus (13%), monuments (8%) and stickers (7%). In Kaunas the most common combination in multilingual signs is Lithuanian with English. The highest percentage of this combination is found on the outside menus (40%), street signs (33%), graffiti (27%), and names of establishments (27%). The study on language order, font and amount of text in multilingual public signs has revealed that in Mainz English and German are holding similar status as neither of the languages seems to be prioritized when it comes to choosing which one will appear first on the sign. In contrast, in Estonia and Lithuania state languages holds the highest prestige and are almost always used prior to any inscription in a foreign language. It could be argued that the second most used language in Tartu is English followed by Russian and then by Finnish as this is the order in which the languages appear on public signs. Likewise, it could be argued that in Kaunas English has the highest status after Lithuanian. The font size is differentiated mainly between state language and foreign language(s) in all three cities. In the majority of multilingual signs in Kaunas and Tartu, the amount of text is the same, while in the majority of multilingual signs in Mainz, the amount of text differs. As neither Germany nor Estonia has official laws regulating the usage of foreign language on signs, it could be claimed that no signs were made against the official language laws. In Estonia, the state language holds very high prestige; thus there is no need to define language laws. Even though the usage of foreign languages is defined in the constitution of Lithuania, in reality these laws are rarely followed. The ethnolinguistic vitality of the state language in all the three cities (countries) is high; therefore, neither of the languages is facing threat of being assimilated. The minorities present in the research areas in both Kaunas and Mainz,
71 however, have such small numbers and such low state support that they are facing the risk of complete assimilation. In contrast, in Tartu the Russian community appears to hold strong ethnolinguistic vitality.
72
REFERENCES
Anderson, John M. 2007. The Grammar of Proper Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, Sandra (ed). 1991. Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged. Glasgow: HarperCollins. Androutsopoulos, J. 2013. “Computer-Mediated Communication and Linguistic Landscapes.” In Holmes, J. and Hazen, K. (edts.) Research Methods in Sociolinguistics: A Practical Guide. Wiley-Blackwell: 74-90. Backhaus, Peter. 2006. Linguistic landscape: A comparative study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bender, Margaret. 2008. "Indexicality, voice, and context in the distribution of Cherokee scripts". International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192: 91–104. Ben-Rafael, E. 2009. A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. 40-54. London: Routledge. Ben-Rafael, Eliezer, Elana Shohamy, Muhammad H. Amara & Nira Trumper-Hecht. 2006. Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism 3(1). 7-30. Blumenreich, Ulrike. 2013. “Germany.” http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/germany.php?aid=425 (date of retrieval: 16 March 2015). Dailey, René M., Howard Giles & Laura L. Jansma. 2005. Language attitudes in an Anglo-Hispanic context: The role of the linguistic landscape. Language & Communication 25(1). 27-38. Estonian Cooperation Assembly. 2008. Estonian Human Development Report 2007. Eesti Ekspressi Kirjastuse AS: Tallinn. European Commission. 2006. "Special Eurobarometer 243: Europeans and their Languages (Executive Summary)" . Europa (web portal). http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_sum_en.pdf (date of retrieval: 18 February 2014). Federal Statistical Office of Germany. “Overnight stays in accommodation establishments in 2009.” Destatis 2009. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Startseite.html?nsc=true&https=1 (date of retrieval: 05 December 2014).
73
Gjørt, Hanne (edt). “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.” Goverment no 03 May 2002. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dokumenter/European-charter-for-regional-or- minority-languages/id420162/ (date of retrieval: 02 April 2015). Graf Lambsdorff, Alexander. “Englisch muss unsere Verwaltungssprache warden.” Die Welt 15 December 2014. http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article135390461/Englisch-muss- unsere-Verwaltungssprache-werden.html (date of retrieval: 05 March 2015). Grivelet, Stéphane. 2001. "Digraphia in Mongolia". International Journal of the Sociology of Language 150: 75–94. Hey, Theresa. 2014. “Folk-linguistic landscape.” Language in Society 43,5: 489-514. Holmes, J. 2000. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (2nd ed.). Wellington: Longman. Humold, Kosmos. “Experts Discuss German Language Policy.” Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung/Foundation 2014. https://www.humboldt- foundation.de/web/2405.html(date of retrieval: 12 April 2015). Järve, P. 2003. Language Battles in the Baltic States: 1989 to 2002. In Daftary, F., Grin, F. (eds.): Nation-Building, Ethnicity and Language Politics in Transition Countries. Budapest: Open Society Institute, 73-105. Kasanga, Luanga Adrien. 2012. “Mapping the linguistic landscape of a commercial neighbourhood in Central Phnom Penh.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32: 1-15. Landry, Rodrigue & Richard Y. Bourhis. 1997. Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16(1). 23-49. Leclerc, Jacques. 1989. La guerre des Langues dans l’affichage. Montreal: VLB éditeur. Lietuvos Statistikos Departamentas. “2011 m. Surašymas.” Oficialiosios statistikos portalas, 2000. http://osp.stat.gov.lt/2011-m.-surasymas (date of retrieval: 05 March 2015). Love, Nigel. 2004. “Cognition and the language myth.” Language Sciences 26. 525– 544. “Numbers, Statistics and Facts”. 2005. Erlebnisplus MAINZ TOURISMUS 2005. http://www.touristik-mainz.de/fakten.html?&L=1 (date of retrieval: 05 December 2014). Office of the Seimas. “Law on the State Language.” 2015. http://www3.lrs.lt/pls/inter3/dokpaieska.showdoc_e?p_id=21941. (date of retrieval: 02 March 2015). 74
Papen, Uta. 2012. “Commercial discourses, gentrification and citizens' protest: the linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 16.1: 56-80. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2001. Cours in Literary Theory: An Anthology ed. by Ryan, Michael and Julie Rivkin. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Sebba, Mark . 2010. Review of Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo by Peter Backhaus". Writing Systems Research 2 (1): 73–76. Shohamy, Elana & Shoshi Waksman. 2009. Linguistic landscape as an ecological arena: Modalities, meanings, negotiations, education. In Elana Shohamy & Durk Gorter (eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery, 313-331. NewYork, NY & London: Routledge. Skutnabb-Kangas, Phillipson, Robert and Mart Rannut (eds). 1995 Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sjoblom, P. 2003. Linguistic Origins In Company Names In Finland. In E. Lavric, J. Kuhn, F. Fisher, H. Wochele and C. Konzett (eds). Language Products and Professions. From Code Choiceto Onomastics. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Spolsky, Bernard and Robert Cooper. 1991. The Languages of Jerusalem. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spolsky, Bernd. 2009. Prolegomena to a Sociolinguistic Theory of Public Signage. In Shohamy and Gorter (eds), Linguistic Landscape expanding the Scenery. 25-39. London: Routledge. Statistics Estonia. “Population by sex, ethnic nationality and county.” PUB.stat 1 January 200. http://pub.stat.ee/pxweb.2001/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=PO0222&path=../I_Datab as/Population/01Population_indicators_and_composition/04Population_figure_ and_composition/&lang=1 (date of retrieval: 05 March 2015). “Tourism in Estonia in 2013 as of 17 March 2014.” EAS enterprise Estonia 2014. https://d3otexg1kysjv4.cloudfront.net/docs/1498005_tourism-in-estonia-2013 (date of retrieval: 05 March 2015). Tufi, Stefania and Robert Blackwood. 2010. “Trademarks in the Linguistic Landscape: Methodological and Theoretical Challenges in Qualifying Brand Names in the Public Space.” International Journal of Multilingualism Vol. 7, No. 3: 197-210. “Umfrage: Mehrheit der Deutschen für Englisch als zweite Amtssprache" Yougov 9 August 2013. https://yougov.de/news/2013/08/09/umfrage-mehrheit-der- deutschen-fur-englisch-als-zw/(date of retrieval: 05 March 2015). 75
UNESCO.“Most Clearing House LinguisticRights: national Constitutions” UNESCO 1994-2003. http://www.unesco.org/most/ln2nat.htm(date of retrieval: 12 April 2015). Volker, Thomas. “ Language Policy – a Debate about the Role of the German Language.” Goethe-Institut December 2006. http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/mac/spw/en1903077.htm (date of retrieval: 02 May 2015). Walid, Rihana. “Why do People Code-switch A Sociolinguistic Approach.” Arab: Arab Open University. Wienold, G. 1994. “ Inscriptions in daily life”. In Sabban, A. & Schmitt, C. (eds.) Der sprachliche Alltag. Linguistik – Rhetorik – Literaturwissenschaft: Festschrift für Wolf Dieter Stempel. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 635-652 Žemaitis, Augustinas. “Languages in Lithuania.” True Lithuania: Sights, Cities Culture History and More 2015. http://www.truelithuania.com/topics/culture- of-lithuania/languages-in-lithuania (date of retrieval: 18 February 2014).
76
Appendix A: Coding of the Data
In order to investigate and compare the LL in these three countries linguistic and semiotic characteristics of these signs have to be investigated. The coding method according to which all variables were marked is adapted from Edelman’s (2010: 78) paper. The signs were coded according to the following variables: a) sign number; b) the survey area c) type of the sign; d) type of establishment; e) sector of the shop; f) type of sign; g) presence of proper name(s) or both; h) language(s) in which the sign is written; i) number of languages; j) language in order of appearance; k) font size of text; l) amount of text in the language; m) presence of translation; n) presence of language mixing; o) blending. The coding of each of these variables is explained below. The complete codebook is given in Appendix X. Edelman (2010) based many of his variables according to the previous research examples done by Ben-Rafael et al. (2004; 2006) and Cenoz & Gorter (2006). Sign number. Each sign was assigned a unique number. The pictures of the signs were marked P (Photo) plus the specific number. All the signs in different cities were marked from one to X (last photo of the sign). Thus, the rage of the numbers is from P001 to PX. Survey area. As it was mentioned before, the pictures of signs were taken in three different cities. Therefore, to differentiate between signs, each sign was coded according to where/or in which survey area the picture was taken. As to make the coding as simple as possible, the survey areas were named according to the first letter of the city the pictures were taken in. Government or private sign. In the chapter 2 the distinction between private and governmental sign was discussed as presented by Backhaus (2007), Edelman (2010) and others. For the purpose of analysing how language use differs in these two categories the pictures of signs were coded in accordance to which type of sign had been photographed. Therefore, every sign in the present study was categorised as being a private or governmental sign. It should be noted that on the general basis, governmental signs were considered to those signs which have been put up by the governmental institutions. Therefore, not only such signs like street or road signs, but also signs on governmental institutions like universities, town hall, libraries etc. or a I sign from a public library, for instance. The signs were categorised as being private if it was not put up by the government. Thus signs of businesses, posters, billboard stickers, graffiti and paper notes attached to some kind of surface were considered as private signs. For the purpose of developing a code the private sign was abbreviated to PRIV and the governmental sign was marked with GOV. Type of establishment. If a sign was attached to the establishment or clearly belonged to the establishment the type of establishment was coded. If a sign officially did not belong to the establishment (sticker, graffiti or other) the type of establishment was coded anyway. Road signs, billboards and other signs which were not attached to any type of establishment or the establishment could not be identified were not coded at all. These signs which were recorded as belonging to some kind of establishment were marked with ESTAB plus a letters(s) representing the establishment. The letters were: RS which stood for railway station, BS - bus station, G - gastronomy facility (coffees, restaurant, supermarkets and others), S - shops (clothes, jewellery, cosmetic shops and other), H - hostels, T - tourist centres or travelling agencies, B - bank, HD - hair dressers salon, HC - health care centres or hospitals, GF - governmental facility (schools, libraries, governmental institutions), F - cinema or theatre, LH - living house or empty house without particular function, O - for other establishments. Sector. It a sign belonged to a shop the sector of that shop was coded. 6 sectors were differentiated for the purpose of the current research: pharmacy (cosmetics, drugs, chemist optician), housewares (household goods, decoration art) books, electronics (phones, electronics, music, photography), clothing (clothes, shoes, accessories, jewellery) and assorted goods (gifts, flowers, lottery, tobacco, fair trade). The shop sectors were marked according to Edelman (2010: 79) example. In his research, he hypothesises that different sectors might favour different languages on signs Type of sign. For every sign the type of sign was coded. The categories include: name of establishment, security information, other shop sign, street sign, road sign, nameplate, sticker, poster, graffiti, and other. Presence of proper name(s), other text or both. It was coded whether a sign contained one or more proper names, was made of other text or both. The proper
II names were regarded all as nouns that denote a particular person, place, or thing. In most cases proper nouns were capitalized, making it easier to recognize (except in Germany, where, according to the grammatical rules all nouns are capitalized). Most commonly occurring proper names were names of shops and brand names of merchandise the establishments were selling. Languages, in order of appearance. The languages on the sign were coded in order of appearance. The language was coded according to the countries they originate from. These countries are referred to by their official abbreviation. For Latin language LA abbreviation was chosen. A complete list of the abbreviations of the languages can be found in the table below Table H.1 Abbreviation of languages used for coding Abbreviation Language Abbreviation Language GB English CH Chinese DE German JP Japanese LT Lithuanian SP Spanish EE Estonian TR Turkish RU Russian IL Italian FR French SE Swedish FI Finish LA Latin
The reading direction was following the standard European reading direction, namely from left to right and from top to bottom. The method like in Edelmans (2010: 81) research was based on Scollon & Scollon’s (2003) code preference system. According to which: [...] if the languages are aligned vertically, the preferred code is located above the secondary code, and if they are aligned horizontally, the preferred code is located in the left position and the secondary code is placed in the right position (the third possibility they posit, namely that the preferred code is located in the centres and the secondary code is placed on the margins of the sign, was not taken into account in the coding).
Though his method is not appropriate when analysing inscriptions which follows other reading direction logic, for example, Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew read from right to left, scripts other than the Japanese did not occur in the data collection. In addition to this, the couple encountered Japanese examples were written according to the standard European reading method. If the language displayed by a sign was not known to the research the sign would be still photographed and appropriate research would be done to identify the
III language. Internet and speakers of the language were used as a translation source. In addition to this, dictionaries of Estonian, German, Lithuanian and English were used to identify the origins of the word. While analysing proper names, if it was not clear whether the name was in the language of the majority inhabitants an online source
Behind the Names (Campbell 1996-2015) was used. If the name was newly coined (not registered in the online database) it was regarded as an occurrence of the name from the language of the area. On the question of abbreviation the research continued to follow Edelman’s example. Edelman (2010: 68) coded abbreviations according to the language of their longer forms. That is to say, according to the word the letters stand for. Symbols such as €, & and % were considered the same language as the surrounding text on a sign. Signs containing only numbers or symbols which could not be identified were excluded from the data. Number of languages. The number of languages present on signs was counted. The appearance of language was counted not paying attention, whether it was a single word, phrase sentence or a whole text. All in all, at most 5 languages were used on the same sign. Therefore, no more sections for additional languages were left in the original codebook. Font size. For each multilingual sign it was coded whether the inscriptions on signs were written in the same font size. When there was more than one language on a sign with different font sizes, those languages were lined from the biggest font size to the smallest. If a sign had more than one foreign language inscription in addition to the native language text and the foreign inscriptions differentiated in font size with the native language but not with the other foreign language inscription, they were placed under the same section in accordance with their font size (whether it was bigger/smaller than the native language inscription). Amount of text. Signs with more than one language were coded whether the amount of text was the same or different in all languages. The amount of text is measured not by the amount of characters, but by the amount of words in the text. If the amount of text differentiated in 3 words and less (not counting prepositions, articles and other language specific items) it was considered that the amount of text is the same. This approach was chosen because in most languages the linguistical and
IV grammatical features of the language may have more or less characters to express the same message. Thus, it was decided to only count words, excluding more specific elements of the language and giving a variety of three words.
V
Appendix B: Total Numbers of Languages Found on Signs in the Three Cities
Languages Mainz Tartu Kaunas
English 16% 25% 22.1% German 82.2% 0.5% 0.21% Lithuanian - 0.25% 76.13% Estonian - 68.14% - Russian - 2.2% 0.32% Finnish - 1.72% - French 0.53% 0.25% 0.84% Spanish 0.24% - - Turkish 0.24% - - Chinese 0.53% - 0.11% Japanese - 0.25% - Italian 0.24% 0.25% 0.11% Latvian - 0.25% 0.11%
Norwegian - 0.25% - Hungarian - 0.25% - Swedish - 0.25% - Latin - - 0.11% Icelandic - 0.25% 0.11% Danish - 0.25% - The Total Amount of 7 15 9 Languages Found
VI
Appendix B: Multilingual and Monolingual Signs in the 11 Types of Establishments (Percentages)
MAINZ BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON 7 46 90 1 14 26 1 13 - 7 10 35 MUL 4 15 14 1 - 19 5 - - 1 - 3 Total 11 61 104 2 14 27 6 13 - 8 10 38 TARTU BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON 3 32 58 2 3 2 2 2 21 - 3 19 MUL - 22 6 1 - - 1 - - - 1 5 Total 3 54 64 3 3 2 3 2 21 - 4 24 KAUNAS BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O MON - 136 247 10 8 6 6 18 36 10 41 99 MUL - 47 32 7 2 2 4 - 2 1 3 34 Total - 183 279 17 10 8 10 18 38 11 44 133
VII
Appendix C: Languages on the 11 Distinguished Types of Establishment
Language MAINZ BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O TL 11 53 99 2 14 25 6 13 - 8 10 36 English 4 19 19 1 - 3 5 - - 1 - 5 Russian ------Turkish - 1 ------Finnish ------French - 2 ------Italian - 1 ------Latin ------Spanish - - 1 ------Other - 2 ------_ Total 11 61 104 2 14 27 6 13 8 10 38 Language TARTU BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O TL 4 48 56 3 3 2 3 2 21 - 4 23 English 1 26 13 1 - - 1 - - - - 6 Russian - 3 ------2 - Turkish ------Finnish 1 3 ------French ------Italian ------Latin ------Spanish ------Other - 2 1 ------_ Total 4 54 64 3 3 2 3 2 21 - 4 24 Language KAUNAS BS G S H T B HD HC GF F LH O TL - 152 245 15 8 8 9 18 37 11 2 131 English - 71 55 9 4 2 4 - 2 1 - 36 Russian - 1 - - - 1 - - - - - 1 Turkish ------Finnish ------French - 2 5 1 ------Italian - 3 - 1 ------Latin - 4 ------Spanish ------Other - 1 1 1 ------Total - 183 279 17 10 8 10 18 38 11 2 133
VIII
Appendix D: Languages in the 7 Shop Sectors
MAINZ Languages P H E&M C AS B Other TL 23 6 21 11 12 3 23 English 2 2 6 2 4 - 2 Russian ------Turkish ------Finnish ------French ------Italian ------Latin ------Spanish - 1 - - - - - Other ------Total 24 6 22 13 13 3 23 TARTU Languages P H E&M C AS B Other TL 19 1 4 6 6 5 15 English 4 - 3 1 1 - 2 Russian ------Turkish ------Finnish ------French ------Italian ------Latin ------Spanish ------Other - 1 - - - - - Total 20 - 5 7 7 5 16 KAUNAS Languages P H E&M C AS B Other TL 54 12 8 89 48 12 23 English 8 7 1 26 11 1 1 Russian ------Turkish ------Finnish ------French 1 1 - 3 - - - Italian ------Latin 4 ------Spanish ------Other ------1
Total 62 15 9 105 53 121 24
IX
Appendix E: Languages on Different Types of Signs
MAINZ TL GB RU TR FR FI IT SP LA O
Name of establishment 75% 19% - 1% 1% - 1% - - 1% Security information 75% 25% ------
Other shop sign 85% 14% - - 1% - - - - - Street sign 100% ------Sticker 80% 20% ------Poster 76% 23% - - - - - 2% - - Graffiti 100% ------Monument 100% ------Menu 70% 30% ------Nameplate 100% ------Other 90% 10% ------TARTU TL GB RU TR FR FI IT SP LA O
Name of establishment 74% 23% ------3% Security information - - 100% ------Other shop sign 74% 24% - - 1% - - - - 1% Street sign 58% 42% ------Sticker 60% 33% 7% ------Poster 80% 17% 1% - - 1% - - - - Graffiti 50% 25% 25% ------Monument 23% 23% 8% 12% - - - - - 35% Menu 35% 26% 13% - - 13% - - - 13% Nameplate ------Other 89% 11% ------KAUNAS TL GB RU TR FR FI IT SP LA O
Name of establishment 69% 27% - - 2% - 1% - 1% 1% Security information 100% ------Other shop sign 80% 18% 1% - 1% - - - - - Street sign 67% 33% ------Sticker - 100% ------Poster 76% 22% 1% ------1% Graffiti 67% 33% ------Monument 89% 9% ------3% Menu 60% 40% ------Nameplate ------Other 87% 11% - - - - 2% - - -
X
Appendix F: Language in order of Appearance
Languages in order Mainz Tartu Kaunas of appearance TL-GB 20 65 95 GB-TL 22 11 36 CH-TL 1 - - TR-DE 1 - - FR-GB - 1 1 RU-GB - 1 - RU-EE - 1 - JP-GB - 1 - FR-LT - - 2 IT-LT - - 2 LA-LT - - 1 RU-LT - - 1 LT-CZ - - 1 LT-LA - - 3
GB-TL-FR 1 - - GB-TL-SP 1 - - CH-TL-GB 1 - - RU-LT-GB - - 1 LT-GB-RU - - 1 GB-EE-FI - 1 -
EE-GB-RU-FI - 2 - EE-RU-FI-DE-GB - 1 - LT-GB-DE-FR - - 1
XI